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ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

THE  FOUNDATIONS 
OF  ARMY  REFORM 


BY 

R.  M.  JOHNSTON 

Assistant  Professor  of  Modern  History  in 

Harvard   University    and   Lecturer 

at    the    U.    S.    Army    War 

College,  Washington 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1915 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
The  Century  Co. 

Published,  Aprils  1915 


To 
HON.  ELIHU   ROOT, 

at  one  time  Secretary  of  War  and  Reformer 
of  the  United  States  Army. 


PREFACE 

In  one  way  this  book  is  an  outcome  of 
the  war  in  Europe.  Yet  the  opinions 
put  forward  are  not  the  sudden  crea- 
tions of  an  overheated  imagination. 
These  opinions  are  based  on  historical 
study,  and  have  found  written  or  spoken 
form  more  than  once  in  recent  years  for 
small  audiences  of  special  interests. 
There  is  little  that  is  new  here,  save  the 
appeal  to  a  wider  audience,  and  the 
piecing  together  by  the  light  of  recent 
events  of  a  number  of  things  which  at 
first  may  seem  unrelated,  yet  which  ir- 
refutably connect  Marlborough  and 
Frederick  the  Great  with  the  present 
secretary  of  war  of  the  United  States! 

It  has  been  distasteful  to  have  to 


PREFACE 

designate  Powers  like  Japan  and  Ger- 
many. A  rhetorical  veil  might  have 
been  spread  over  them,  and  I  might 
have  referred  continuously  to  "a 
great  Asiatic  Power,"  or  "a  militarist 
state  in  Europe."  On  the  whole  it  did 
not  appear  worth  while.  In  fact  it 
seemed  to  vitiate  fundamentally  the 
position  here  taken  up,  which  is  to  dis- 
cuss a  vital  national  problem  in  the  most 
direct  and  precise  way  possible,  avoid- 
ing the  vague  generalities  with  which 
the  public  must  by  now  be  quite 
satiated.  What  is  said  of  Germany,  of 
Japan,  and  of  other  Powers,  implies  no 
unfriendliness,  merely  an  attempt  to 
state  facts,  sometimes  unpleasant,  as 
accurately  as  possible. 

I  must  further  explain  that  I  have  all 
through  put  to  one  side  as  much  as  I 
could  the  question  of  the  navy.     Yet  the 


PREFACE 

problem  of  national  defense  is  essen- 
tially a  mixed  one.  But  the  fact  is  that 
we  have  a  navy,  and  have  not  an  army; 
and  until  we  have  an  army  no  correct 
adjustment  of  these  questions  is  pos- 
sible. I  have  therefore  confined  myself 
as  far  as  possible  to  the  elements  or 
foundations  of  our  military  problem. 

National  armament  is  rapidly  becom- 
ing a  party  question.  One  who  ap- 
proaches the  matter  as  a  student  cannot 
but  regret  this,  because  the  facts  are  so 
important  to  the  country  as  a  whole. 
It  is  in  this  spirit  that  they  are  put  for- 
ward; and  it  may  be  added  that  noth- 
ing here  stated  is  drawn  from  sources 
not  wholly  accessible  to  the  public. 
The  opinions  expressed  are  personal 
and  not  in  any  appreciable  sense  the 
result  of  consultation  with  others. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     ARMIES      IN      THE      EIGHTEENTH 

CENTURY     3 

II  THE  ART  OF  WAR ^2 

III  THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 41 

IV  NATIONAL  MILITARY  POLICIES     .  63 
V  KRUPPISM  AND  DISARMAMENT     .  93 

VI     EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA       .     /     .  119 

VII     MILITARY  EXPERIENCES  OF  THE 

UNITED   STATES 145 

VIII     OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE  POLICY  ITQ 

IX    ORGANIZATION 199 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

CHAPTER  I 

ARMIES   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

AT  the  epoch,  not  so  very  remote,  of 
the  Declaration  of  American  In- 
dependence, armies  were  viewed  differ- 
ently from  to-day.  With  some  reserva- 
tions as  to  the  British  army,  every 
armed  force  was  regarded  as  an  essen- 
tial prerogative  and  instrument  of  a 
monarch.  It  belonged  to  him  in  a  per- 
sonal and  exclusive  sense,  as  an  unques- 
tioned privilege.  It  was  therefore,  in 
the  last  analysis,  the  foundation  of  the 
established  order  of  things  in  Europe; 
incidentally,  it  was  an  instrument  for 
territorial  acquisition. 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

But,  as  the  public  saw  things,  the  con- 
stant factor  was  tacitly  accepted,  while 
its  incident  appeared  the  chief  matter. 
Autocratic  monarchy  was  reckoned  a 
divine  ordinance  and  hardly  worth  dis- 
cussing, while  interest  centered  in  mili- 
tary activities  provoked  by  far  less  im- 
portant matters,  ranging  all  the  way 
from  the  point  of  honor  of  the  sover- 
eign to  the  economic  alvantage  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole. 

Take  the  Bourbons  in  1781,  the  year 
of  Yorktown  and  of  Necker's  Compte 
Rendu.  Up  to  that  time  it  had  never 
occurred  to  any  one  in  France  that  the 
Bourbon  accounts  or  the  Bourbon  army 
concerned  any  one  but  the  monarch. 
His  tax-raised  revenue  was  his  own  and 
beyond  the  range  of  investigation  in  the 
same  sense  as  the  income  of  any  private 
individual.  And  from  this  revenue  he 
4* 


ARMIES  IN  18TH  CENTURY 

maintained,  at  what  was  thought  of  as 
his  personal  expense,  just  what  number 
of  soldiers  he  saw  fit.  Even  though 
financial  chaos  and  bankruptcy  threat- 
ened, even  though  the  American  war 
was  costing  enormous  sums,  no  criticism 
was  offered  until  in  that  year,  1781, 
Necker,  on  being  dismissed  from  office, 
issued  his  epoch-making  Compte 
Rendu.  It  was  a  halting,  incomplete, 
inaccurate  attempt  to  state  the  financial 
situation  of  the  kingdom.  The  ques- 
tion was  now  raised:  Is  finance  royal 
or  national?  The  Estates  General  re- 
plied eight  years  later  by  a  decree  that 
pledged  the  national  credit  for  the  na- 
tional debt. 

No  finances,  no  army.     The  nation- 
alization of  the  one  inevitably  resulted 
in  the  nationalization  of  the  other.     The 
French  army,  long  unpaid  and  in  the 
5 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

hands  of  a  kindly  and  unenergetic  mon- 
arch, failed  to  maintain  the  old  order  in 
July,  1789,  and  a  year  later  found  itself 
under  a  new  allegiance :  to  the  Nation, 
the  Law,  and  the  King.  This  was  per- 
haps the  decisive  act  of  the  French 
Revolution.  But  the  public  missed  its 
full  significance,  still  accustomed  to  the 
superficial  view  that  an  army  was  for 
the  most  part  concerned  with  external 
war,  whether  of  ambition  or  of  economic 
interest. 

The  army  of  the  Bourbons  was  fairly 
representative  of  the  European  armies 
of  that  time.  The  King  of  Prussia,  the 
Emperor,  the  King  of  Sardinia,  the  Re- 
public of  Venice,  the  King  of  Spain, 
the  Russian  Tsar,  all  maintained  armies 
of  the  same  general  type.  And  as  these 
armies  were  thought  of  in  their  personal 
relations  to  a  sovereign,  it  followed  that 
6 


ARMIES  IN  18TH  CENTURY 

a  soldier's  qualification  was  almost 
wholly  disconnected  with  the  place  of 
his  birth.  A  soldier  was  a  professional 
man  who  served  wherever  he  found  good 
pay  and  conditions ;  and  a  Swiss  infan- 
tryman might  hesitate  as  to  whether  to 
enlist  with  the  King  of  France,  the  King 
of  Naples,  or  the  Pope,  very  much  as  a 
German  chemist  might  hesitate  to-day 
as  to  whether  to  seek  a  job  in  Lanca- 
shire, in  Massachusetts,  or  in  Nor- 
mandy. Switzerland  bred  as  good  sol- 
diers as  were  to  be  found  in  Europe; 
they  could  command  high  pay  in  any 
capital.  Hesse  was  turned  into  the 
most  productive  of  soldier  farms  by  her 
thrifty  electors,  who  took  to  the  lucra- 
tive business  of  battalion  contractors. 
As  the  army  of  Louis  XVI  marched  on 
Paris  in  July,  1789,  its  heads  of  columns 
were  not  French :  they  were  formed  by 
7 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

such  regiments  as  Nassau,  Royal-Et- 
ranger,  Esterhazy,  Diesbach,  Royal- 
Allemand,  Reinach,  Royal-Cravate; 
while  the  general  in  command  was  a 
Swiss.  The  Duke  of  Brunswick's  col- 
umns in  1792  were  not  appreciably 
more  foreign,  and  were  viewed  by  the 
people  of  Paris  much  as  their  monarch's 
army  had  been  viewed  three  years 
earlier. 

/^  It  must  not  be  supposed,  however, 
that  eighteenth-century  armies  in  Con- 
tinental Europe  were  purely  profes- 
sional and  non-national.  It  is  merely 
a  matter  of  emphasis.  For  if  one  were 
considering  the  question  in  close  detail, 
it  would  be  necessary  to  dwell  on  the 
militia  organizations  that  were  called  on 
to  play  a  part  occasionally,  as  in  France 
and  Prussia.  Again,  levies  of  an  even 
more  primitive  description,  such  as  those 
8 


ARMIES  IN  18TH  CENTURY 

of  the  Hungarian  horse,  tended  to  give 
war  at  times  a  more  national  character. 
But  these  were  not  the  outstanding 
facts.  Speaking  broadly,  an  army  be- 
longed to  its  monarch,  and  the  soldier 
was  a  professional  expert,  and  often, 
non-national. 

Just  as  the  army  belonged  to  the  mon- 
arch, so  did  the  regiment  belong  to  its 
colonel,  and  the  company  to  its  captain. 
But  here  we  come  to  a  matter  in  which 
variation  was  great  among  the  different 
armies.  Improvements  were  being 
made  in  this  system  which  was,  on  the 
whole,  a  pernicious  survival  from  the 
seventeenth  century.  It  will  be  stated, 
therefore,  in  a  purely  formal  sense,  and 
more  to  give  an  impression  of  the  views 
of  the  epoch  than  to  cover  conditions  ex- 
isting at  any  one  place  and  time. 

A  regiment  or  a  company  was  a  ben- 
9 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

efice  in  very  much  the  same  sense  as  a 
bishopric  or  deanery.  The  king  paid 
the  colonel  so  much  for  his  regiment; 
the  colonel  paid  the  captain  so  much  for 
his  company.  At  each  of  these  steps 
profits  were  made;  in  fact,  the  whole 
business  of  war  and  army  management 
was  full  of  petty  fees  and  profits,  so 
that  the  term  professional  soldier  was, 
even  in  that  sense,  entirely  justified. 
The  emoluments,  like  in  most  profes- 
sions, went  to  those  nearest  the  top  of 
the  ladder ;  so  that  it  paid  to  buy  a  posi- 
tion higher  up,  and  a  complicated  sys- 
tem of  purchase  of  commissions  crept 
in,  which  in  the  English  army  survived 
to  within  half  a  century  of  our  own 
time. 

Under  these  conditions  a  conmiission 
as  an  officer  was  naturally  enough  a 
privilege  reserved  to  men  of  rank.     As 
10 


ARMIES  IN  18TH  CENTURY 

the  king  owned  the  army,  so  did  the 
aristocracy  monopolize  the  commissions. 
In  France,  four  quarterings  of  nobiUty 
were  necessary  for  holding  officers' 
rank ;  and  an  able  soldier  but  a  plebeian 
like  Jourdan  might  distinguish  himself 
pre-eminently,  as  he  did  in  the  trenches 
at  Yorktown,  and  yet  remain  a  sergeant. 
Under  the  Republic,  the  same  man 
might  rise  to  command  a  great  national 
army  and  win  one  of  the  decisive  vic- 
tories of  European  history ;  as  Jourdan 
did  at  Fleurus  in  1794.  At  the  time  of 
the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession  the 
HohenzoUerns  were  not  above  contract- 
ing out  their  army,  under  the  command 
of  Crown  Prince  Frederick  William,  to 
the  Allies.  The  Elector  of  Hesse,  on  a 
smaller  scale,  went  into  the  same  sort  of 
business.  As  late  as  1855  we  find  Eng- 
land attempting  to  hire  the  Sardinian 
11 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

army.  On  a  smaller  scale,  colonels  are 
military  contractors.  They  supply  the 
king  with  a  regiment.  It  is  made  up  of 
professional  soldiers ;  and  is  recruited  by 
other  professional  soldiers  who  drift  in, 
or  by  new  recruits  who  soon  learn  to 
conform  with  the  high  standard  they 
see  all  about  them.  War  decimates 
these  regiments ;  but  it  also  ravages  the 
country  and  turns  peasants  to  soldier- 
ing, who  come  in  as  recruits. 

The  expansion  of  armies  for  war 
emergencies  was  a  slow  process  and  not 
at  all  comparable  with  the  modern  sys- 
tem founded  by  Schamhorst.  Larger 
sums  were  made  available  with  which  to 
enter  into  more  contracts  with  suppliers 
of  troops.  Old  and  new  hands  were  at- 
tracted by  the  prospect  of  fighting,  and 
especially  of  the  incidents  of  fighting. 
From  the  French  army  statistics  the  f  ol- 
12 


ARMIES  IN  18TH  CENTURY 

lowing  figures  will  show  the  nominal 
numbers  of  the  Bourbon  army  in  alter- 
nate years  of  peace  and  war. 


Peace 

War 

1726. 

...160,000 

1733. 

...205,000 

1734. 

...303,000 

1739. 

.  .  .  200,000 

1742. 

...400,000 

1749. 

...140,000 

1756. 

...290,000 

1759. 

...330,000 

1775. 

.  .  .  128,000 

The  cost  of  this  army,  so  far  as  the  im- 
perfect figures  will  serve,  appears  to 
have  oscillated  from  about  35  to  168 
millions  of  francs.  In  1775  the  figure 
is  98  millions. 

Turning  to  England  we  note  differ- 
ences. The  army  was  broken  in  the 
monarch's  hand  as  early  as  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  And  the 
struggle  of  the  Coromonwealth  against 
13 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

the  Crown  was  maintained  by  the  same 
iron  stock  which  in  that  epoch  succeeded 
in  colonizing  New  England.  When  the 
Stuarts  were  driven  out,  the  question  of 
the  army  took  on  a  new  aspect.  The 
sovereigns  that  followed  were  far  more 
disposed  to  follow  constitutional 
courses.  England  had  become  in- 
volved in  continental  wars  with  Hol- 
land, with  Spain,  with  France.  She 
struggled  for  commercial  advantages, 
and  the  control  of  the  sea;  she  resisted 
the  planting  of  a  strong  power  among 
the  inlets  and  havens  that  faced  the 
Thames  from  Antwerp  to  Dunkirk. 
Such  a  policy  required  an  army,  and 
therefore  England  reluctantly,  suspi- 
ciously, entrusted  William  III  and  his 
successors  with  the  forces  that  appeared 
to  be  called  for  by  the  passing  circum- 
stances. 


ARMIES  IN  18TH  CENTURY 

Although  the  British  monarchs  of  the 
eighteenth  century  maintained  an  army 
similar  in  many  ways  to  those  of  the 
Continental  States,  there  were  at  bot- 
tom important  differences.  Financial 
control  reposed  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons from  the  year  1689.  The  King's 
power  had  already  in  large  measure 
passed  to  the  Cabinet.  Yet  the  army 
was  viewed  with  jealousy,  and  the  mili- 
tia, successor  of  the  older  train-bands 
that  had  fought  for  the  Commonwealth, 
was  viewed  as  the  national  as  opposed 
to  the  royal  force.  The  Tory  country 
gentlemen,  none  too  zealous  on  behalf 
of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  officered  the 
militia.  It  was  not  an  efficient  force 
even  after  some  training  as  at  the  time 
of  the  Seven  Years'  War  and  at  the 
time  of  Napoleon;  but  it  long  continued 
immensely  popular  as  the  hypothetical 
15 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

bulwark  of  the  British  constitution 
against  a  hypothetical  tyrant. 
,  These  ideas  evoked  a  natural  echo 
from  America.  When  the  colonists 
revolted  from  the  mother  country  noth- 
ing proved  more  distasteful  for  them 
than  to  carry  their  decision  to  its  logical 
conclusion,  the  formation  of  an  army. 
The  armed  farmers  of  Lexington  were 
well  enough,  but  when  it  became  neces- 
sary to  supplement  their  well-meant  but 
untutored  and  sporadic  efforts  by  the 
formation  of  regular  Continental 
troops,  enthusiasm  waned  fast.  Some 
aspects  of  the  War  of  Independence 
will  be  noticed  in  a  later  chapter.  For 
the  present  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  at 
the  close  of  the  war  and  during  the 
period  that  followed,  American  senti- 
ment towards  the  army  reflected  pretty 
closely  the  conditions  that  surrounded 
16 


ARMIES  IN  18TH  CENTURY 

armies  in  Europe.  It  was  natural,  in 
fact  inevitable,  that  a  standing  army 
should  be  thought  of  as  an  engine  of 
tyranny,  and  more  or  less  useless  for 
any  other  purpose.  Had  not  the  Eng- 
lish sovereigns  from  Charles  I  to 
George  III,  for  a  century  and  a  half, 
employed  armed  force  to  assert  their 
will  against  their  subjects?  Was  not 
an  army  by  the  nature  of  military  com- 
mand an  aristocratic  institution? 

As  a  result  of  these  wholly  justified 
prejudices  the  United  States  proved  on 
the  whole  ungrateful  in  the  treatment 
awarded  to  the  brave  men  who  gave 
their  blood  for  independence.  Al- 
though Washington  plainly  declared 
and  frequently  repeated  that  the  militia 
had  actually  done  more  harm  than  good 
to  the  cause,  the  second  clause  of  the 
Constitution  was  drawn  as  follows: 
17 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

*'A  well  regulated  militia  being  nec- 
essary to  the  security  of  a  free  state,  the 
right  of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear 
arms  shall  not  be  infringed.'^  It  is 
needless  to  point  out  that  this  main- 
tained the  English  distinction  between 
the  constitutional  and  the  royal  force. 
Another  aspect  of  the  matter  is  echoed 
by  such  provisos  as  the  one  still  skulk- 
ing in  the  Massachusetts  constitution, 
whereby  officers  must  be  elected  by  their 
men.  By  such  means  democracy  might 
be  strengthened;  and  tyranny  resisted. 
Yet  it  will  be  seen  later  that,  as  times 
changed,  other  and  unforeseen  dangers 
just  as  serious  as  these  might  be  run 
into. 

The  land  army,  then,  was  viewed  as 

an  instrument  of  tyranny;  the  sea  army 

was   in   different   case.     And   the   sea 

army  was  perhaps  the  more  potent  fac- 

18 


ARMIES  IN  18TH  CENTURY 

tor  in  the  intercourse  of  nations.  "Ad- 
miral Mahan  has  laid  down  in  terms 
that  are  perhaps  too  sweeping  an  argu- 
ment for  the  supremacy  of  sea  power 
over  land  power.  It  is  true  to  say  that 
the  factor  represented  by  sea  power  had 
been  much  neglected  by  historians  be- 
fore he  so  brilliantly  called  attention  to 
it.  But  it  is  also  true  to  say  that  the 
decisiveness  of  sea  power  has  not  been 
quite  so  constant  as  he  claims,  and  that 
it  must  vary  in  every  conflict  with  the 
general  situation  of  the  combatants. 
Obviously,  a  struggle  between  Servia 
and  Bulgaria  might  not  be  in  any  way 
affected  by  sea  power,  while  one  be- 
tween England  and  Germany  must  be 
so  inevitably. 

"But  Admiral  Mahan  has  rarely  been 
happier  than  when  pointing  out  how  un- 
emphatic,  subtle,  and  underlying  is  the 
19 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

influence  of  sea  power.  And  there  lies 
one  of  its  chief  differences  from  land 
power.  From  1805  to  1812  the  world 
viewed  Napoleon  as  a  giant  and  Eng- 
land as  a  pigmy;  yet,  if  sea  power  was 
really  more  decisive  than  land  power, 
then  in  reality  the  case  was  the  opposite. 
The  truth  lies,  of  course,  in  Admiral 
Mahan's  observation  that  the  impres- 
sion and  effect  of  sea  power  are  less  ob- 
vious, less  insistent."  ^ 

Now  from  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  to  the  present  day  Eng- 
land has  maintained  a  sea  militarism  of 
an  extreme  character.  For  it  has  dur- 
ing most  of  this  time  rejected  equality 
with  its  opponents  and  attempted,  with 
general  success,  to  maintain  superiority 
and  supremacy.     Yet  this  sea  power, 

1  Johnston,  "Three  Hundred  Years  of  War."    In- 
fantry Journal,  November,  1914. 

^0 


ARMIES  IN  18TH  CENTURY 

that  for  a  century  and  a  half  dominated 
all  the  world  and  created  the  greatest 
empire  yet  seen,  never  provoked  the 
fears  and  jealousy  that  were  felt  for  the 
eighteenth-century  army.  For  a  fleet 
arises  from  commerce.  Its  home  is  the 
ocean.  It  neither  helps  the  despot  nor 
threatens  the  citizen.  And  in  the  atti- 
tude of  the  American  citizen  of  the 
present  day  towards  fleets  and  armies, 
these  old  eighteenth-century  ideas  and 
prejudices  are  still  quite  apparent. 
We  put  our  hands  in  our  pockets  with- 
out too  much  reluctance,  with  some  rel- 
ish even,  to  build  such  a  nice  mechanical 
toy  as  a  dreadnought. — But  a  regiment 
of  soldiers? — Never! 


«1 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   ART   OF   WAR 

WAR  as  an  art  reaches  its  apogee, 
in  modem  times,  with  the  eight- 
eenth century.  Marlborough  marks  the 
beginning,  Frederick  the  middle,  Bona- 
parte the  close  of  the  epoch.  Nowa- 
days, in  western  Europe  at  all  events, 
war  is  no  longer  an  art;  it  is  rather 
an  economic  function.  The  nation  is 
armed  and  crowded  to  the  frontier  while 
an  economic  adjustment  of  vast  propor- 
tions supplies  its  thousand  needs,  and 
attempts  to  maintain  some  sort  of  equi- 
librium behind.  A  hundred  years  ago, 
things  were  very  different. 

The  eighteenth-century  army,  as  an 
22 


THE  ART  OF  WAR 

instrument  in  the  hands  of  its  general, 
may  be  compared  to  the  eighteenth-cen- 
tury orchestra.  Starting  on  a  basis  of 
string  instruments,  the  woods  were 
gradually  developed  from  the  time  of 
Montaverde  to  Mozart,  while  with 
Beethoven,  at  the  close  of  the  century, 
the  brass  comes  into  its  own,  and  the 
three  great  parts  of  the  orchestra, 
amply  developed,  give  the  composer 
ample  means  for  deploying  the  re- 
sources of  his  art.  A  somewhat  similar 
evolution  took  place  with  the  three  great 
arms  of  the  modern  army:  infantry, 
cavalry,  artillery. 

Infantry,  before  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, was  normally  made  up  in  varying 
proportions  of  pikemen  and  musketeers. 
The  pikemen  held  off  the  cavalry,  or 
charged  an  enemy  in  position.  The 
musketeers  held  the  opposing  cavalry 
23 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

at  distance  or  occupied  woods,  ditches 
and  flank  positions,  and  tended  to  de- 
velop a  direct  attack  by  fire.  At  the 
turn  of  the  century  a  shortened  pike 
shaft  was  stuck  into  the  muzzle  of  a 
musket  and  then  developed  into  a  socket 
bayonet,  so  that  the  pikeman  and  mus- 
keteer were  amalgamated.  A  unit  of 
say  300  pikemen  and  300  musketeers 
was  converted  by  this  invention  into  a 
unit  of  600  pikemen  and  600  musketeers. 
In  other  words,  the  value  of  infantry 
was  numerically  doubled.^ 

In  Marlborough's  campaigns  during 
the  Wars  of  the  Spanish  Succession, 
cavalry  and  infantry  were  of  about 
equal  value  in  the  shock  of  battle,  and 
the  use  of  cavalry  in  the  front  line  is  dis- 
tinctive of  this  great  master  of  the  art 

1  An  amusing  illustration  of  our  consistently  anti- 
quated notions  of  war  is  that  so  late  as  1812,  the  15th 
Infantry  was  for  a  time  armed  with  pikes! 


THE  ART  OF  WAR 

of  war  and  of  his  epoch.  But  infantry 
was  rapidly  acquiring  the  predominance 
it  has  since  retained  on  the  battlefield. 
Material  improvements  in  the  musket 
made  the  arm  more  effective.  And  the 
increasing  rigor  of  drill  and  precision 
in  manoeuvring,  especially  in  Prussia, 
soon  relegated  cavalry  to  a  secondary, 
though  still  highly  important  part. 
The  artillery  arm  was  as  yet  of  little 
account  for  field  operations. 

Frederick  the  Great  brought  the  in- 
fantry arm  to  a  point  it  has  not  since 
surpassed.  It  could  maintain  tactical 
cohesion  under  a  terrific  fire,  on  the  wid- 
est front,  and  in  complicated  forma- 
tions. No  infantry  ever  equaled  it  in 
its  power  of  forcing  a  decision  of  the 
combat  by  manoeuvring  against  a  given 
point  and  under  the  most  violent  condi- 
tions.    To   understand   this   better   it 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

may  be  as  well  to  clear  away  a  misun- 
derstanding widespread  among  popular 
lecturers  as  to  the  relation  between  im- 
proved armaments  and  destruction  of 
life  in  battle. 
TT"  As  a  general  proposition  it  may  be 
laid  down  that  the  less  destructive  the 
weapon  the  greater  will  be  the  loss  of 
life ;  and  the  history  of  war  gives  ample 
confirmation  to  the  theory.^  Arm  two 
groups  of  six  men  with  knives,  and  tell 
them  to  get  a  decision:  the  loss  of  life 
will  inevitably  be  heavy,  and  the  de- 
cision rapid.  Arm  the  same  groups 
each  with  a  quick  firing  gun:  the  loss 
of  life  will  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  be 
smaller,  and  the  decision  may  be  long 

2  Loss  of  life  per  hour  of  fighting  in  battle  de- 
creases steadily  from  about  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  to  the  present  time.  No  exact  sta- 
tistical formula  for  this  can  be  given,  but  in  a  rough 
sense  it  is  a  decrease  of  something  like  8  per  cent,  to 
an  eighth  of  1  per  cent. 

26 


THE  ART  OF  WAR 

postponed.  With  weak  arms  the  de- 
cision must  be  sought  at  short  range 
and  a  system  of  disciphne  and  tactics 
must  be  evolved  that  will  meet  this  ne- 
cessity. With  powerful  weapons  the 
emphasis  changes;  it  becomes  increas- 
ingly necessary  to  protect  human  life 
instead  of  risking  it;  tactics  are  modi- 
fied, distances  are  increased,  and  loss 
decreases  correspondingly.  The  illu- 
sion is  widespread,  nevertheless,  that 
modern  weapons  cause  greater  loss  of 
life  than  those  used  in  earlier  days. 
This  illusion  proceeds  from  various 
causes.  The  incident  of  a  local  surprise 
where  the  modern  weapon  does  its  de- 
structive work,  is  extended  to  represent 
the  norm  of  the  whole  shock  between 
two  armies,  which  it  does  not.  The  il- 
lusion also  proceeds  from  ignoring  the 
relation  of  tactics  to  armaments  and 
27 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

from  the  magnifying  effect  of  the  mod- 
ern press.  The  fact  remains  that  a 
blunderbuss,  in  the  evolution  of  war,  is 
a  more  effective  weapon  than  a  high- 
power,  small-bore  rifle,  because  the 
former  was  used  at  ten  feet,  where  the 
latter  is  used  at  a  thousand  yards. 

The  musket  in  Frederick's  day  was 
already  capable  of  discharging  several 
shots  a  minute,  but  it  lacked  power  and 
accuracy.  Although  it  might  range  a 
good  deal  beyond  200  yards,  yet  that 
distance  was  generally  regarded  as  the 
practical  limit  of  the  field  of  fire  within 
which  the  decision  could  be  reached. 
Every  twenty  yards  advance  within 
that  distance  was  a  distinct  gain  in  fire 
power.  The  ultimate  aim  of  the  com- 
mander was  to  obtain  so  close  a  posi- 
tion and  to  deliver  so  smashing  a  dis- 
charge as  to  break  the  opposing  line  at 
28 


THE  ART  OF  WAR 

one  blow.  Such  was  the  "perfect  vol- 
lej^"  on  the  plains  of  Abraham  in  1759. 
If  volleys  could  be  delivered  either  by- 
units  or  by  the  whole  line,  as  at  Leu- 
then,  from  an  enfilading  position,  so 
much  the  better. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  was 
necessary  to  bring  the  infantry  into  bat- 
tle in  such  a  way  as  to  develop  the  great- 
est possible  quantity  of  fire  at  the  short- 
est possible  range  and  at  the  most  favor- 
able angle  possible.  This  was  effected 
by  deploying  extended  lines  of  infan- 
try, drilled  to  fear  the  sergeant  who 
walked  behind  stick  in  hand  more  than 
the  enemy's  guns;  and  manoeuvring 
with  such  rapidity  and  accuracy  as  to  be 
able  to  snatch  any  favorable  opportu- 
nity for  gaining  the  enfilading  position 
while  maintaining  the  general  align- 
ment. Frederick  was  extraordinarily 
29 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

successful  in  persuading  his  soldiers  to 
"respecter  le  baton,"  as  he  pleasantly 
put  the  dilemma  between  facing  the 
bullet  or  the  cat  o'  nine  tails.  At 
Leuthen,  at  Rossbach,  he  demonstrated 
what  pulverizing  results  a  small  but 
highly  drilled  professional  army  could 
obtain  through  the  application  of  those 
parade-ground  manoeuvers  of  which  he 
held  the  secret.^ 

Frederick  generally  strove  for  a 
pitched  battle,  or  quick  results.  The  size 
of  his  army,  the  nature  of  his  manoeu- 
vers, and  the  character  of  the  ground 
in  the  country  he  fought  over,  all  helped 
to  make  central  control  of  the  army 
and  direct  supervision  by  the  general 
possible.  Infantry  though  broken  up 
into  battalions,  and  even  on  occasion 

3  Frederick's  peace  manoeuvers  were  carried  out  se- 
cretly behind  a  cordon  of  pickets. 

30 


THE  ART  OF  WAR 

into  larger  groups,  was  handled  as  a 
whole.  The  subordinate  generals  and 
officers  were  more  concerned  with  main- 
taining alignments  and  relative  posi- 
tions and  directions  than  with  utilizing 
broken  ground,  which  was  avoided,  or 
exercising  any  initiative.  The  preoc- 
cupation of  the  military  art  was  tactical 
in  the  strictest  sense. 

Soon  after  the  close  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War  came  important  modifica- 
tions in  the  artillery  arm,  which  hitherto 
had  lagged  far  behind  the  others. 
These  reforms  took  place  in  France, 
and  the  officer  whose  name  is  most 
closely  associated  with  them  was  de 
Gribeauval.  He  succeeded  in  reduc- 
ing the  weight  of  the  gun,  thereby  in- 
creasing its  mobility  and  rendering  it 
capable  of  following  infantry  over 
broken  ground.  He  gave  it  greater 
31 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

muzzle  velocity,  while  reducing  the 
charge;  in  fact,  almost  made  a  new 
weapon  of  it.  At  the  same  time  he  and 
others  were  experimenting  with  grape, 
which  became  more  destructive.  These 
changes  brought  the  artillery  arm  up  to 
the  level  of  the  other  two,  and  by  dis- 
arranging the  balance  then  existing 
brought  about  a  change  in  theoretical 
tactics;  in  fact,  in  the  whole  theory  of 
war.  General  du  Teil  was  teaching 
these  theories  at  the  artillery  school  at 
Auxonne  at  the  time  when  the  French 
Revolution  broke  out,  and  young  Bona- 
parte, a  sub-lieutenant  of  artillery,  was 
quartered  there  and  became  one  of  his 
favorite  students. 

The  new  theory  ran  along  the  follow- 
ing lines.     Guns  can  now  follow  the  in- 
fantry fight  and  shift  position  rapidly. 
They  can  also  deliver  a  greater  volume 
3a 


THE  ART  OF  WAR 

of  fire  at  increased  ranges.  That  being 
so,  if  operations  are  being  conducted  in 
country  broken  by  natural  obstacles, 
numerous  positions  can  be  found  where 
a  few  guns  supported  by  detachments 
of  the  other  arms,  can  hold  at  bay  large 
numbers  of  deployed  infantry.  Again, 
if  one  could  concentrate,  by  good  use  of 
ground,  the  fire  of  a  number  of  guns 
on  a  given  point  of  the  enemy's  line, 
then  a  breach  might  be  made,  much  as 
in  the  attack  of  a  fortress,  and  a  vic- 
tory won.  Napoleon  acted  on  this 
theory  in  the  great  grape  shot  attacks 
of  his  later  campaigns ;  and  even  before 
Napoleon,  Carnot  adopted  the  theory 
of  the  new  school  by  breaking  up  his 
armies  into  divisions  of  the  three  arms, 
self-sustaining  because  of  the  increased 
value  and  radius  of  fire.^ 

*  The  French  began  experimenting  with   divisional 
organizations  some  years  before  this. 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

Every  increase  of  the  power  of  the 
defensive  has  presented  the  recurring 
problem:  how,  then,  is  a  decision  to  be 
got?  Napoleon  found  an  answer.  If 
the  shock  was  to  be  less  easy  to  force, 
less  decisive,  spread  over  more  ground 
and  more  time,  then  could  not  tactics 
be  supplemented  by  strategy?  Could 
not  an  army  be  so  handled  as  to  obtain 
an  advantage  which  might  prove  deci- 
sive even  before  the  tactical  shock  oc- 
curred? 

"Marengo  illustrates  admirably  the 
strategic  conception  that  overcomes 
tactical  disability.  Between  the  two 
armies  that  met  on  that  field  there  was 
no  comparison  in  point  of  discipline  and 
of  manoeuvring  power  in  terms  of 
minor  tactics. '  The  French  army  was 
wretchedly  inadequate  to  the  business 
in  hand.     A  large  proportion  of  the  in- 


THE  ART  OF  WAR 

fantry  was  green.  Some  of  the  men 
had  not  even  received  muskets,  while 
many  had  had  muskets  dealt  out  to  them 
on  the  march  through  Switzerland  and 
were  only  just  beginning  to  get  correct 
notions  as  to  which  end  should  be 
pointed  at  the  enemy.  As  soon  as 
Austrians  and  French  were  fairly  de- 
ployed face  to  face  the  result,  tactically, 
was  not  in  doubt  for  an  instant.  And 
it  was  only  because  the  Austrians,  su- 
perior also  in  numbers,  carelessly  blun- 
dered after  apparently  winning  an  easy 
victory,  only  because  Desaix  and  Kel- 
lermann  struck  an  unexpected,  clever, 
and  lucky  blow,  that  Melas  did  not 
camp  on  the  battlefield.  But  the  re- 
markable thing  was  that  all  this  mat- 
tered very  little,  because  Bonaparte  had 
got  a  decisive  strategic  result  before  he 
even  attempted  to  get  a  tactical  one. 
35 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

"The  strategic  manoeuver  of  Napo- 
leon was  far  more  akin  to  the  concep- 
tions of  von  Moltke  than  to  those  of 
Frederick.  The  disposition  of  troops 
in  France  and  Italy  for  a  strategic  pur- 
pose; the  rapid  march  to  Milan;  the 
fan-like  spread  of  the  French  divisions 
to  cover  all  roads  whereby  Melas  could 
get  back  to  his  line  of  communications ; 
the  occupation  of  the  Stradella  Pass, 
easy  of  defense  but  with  no  ground 
really  suited  to  the  deployment  of  an 
army;  all  of  these  were  features  that 
belonged  to  an  era  of  greatly  increased 
power  in  fire  arms,  of  the  fractioning 
of  armies  into  self-sustaining  parts. 
For  these  reasons  the  strategic  advan- 
tage which  Napoleon  obtained  by  the 
rapidity  of  his  concentration  and  pre- 
liminary manoeuver  was  decisive,  and  a 
tactical  set-back  was  not  at  all  likely  to 
36 


THE  ART  OF  WAR 

prove  serious  with  the  ground  and  the 
strategic  situation  of  the  armies  what 
they  were."  ^ 

We  thus  have  a  development  of 
armaments,  and  a  new  theory  of  war  to 
mark  the  close  of  the  century.  But 
this  was  not  all,  for  the  same  epoch  wit- 
nessed a  large  increase  in  the  size  of 
armies  together  with  a  lowering  of  the 
efficiency  of  the  infantry  arm.  But  this 
topic  belongs  to  the  next  chapter,  in 
which  the  displacement  of  professional 
by  national  armies  will  be  discussed. 
For  the  present,  we  may  say  that  under 
the  new  conditions  Bonaparte  showed 
a  genius  for  war  that  raised  him  at  the 
close  of  his  first  campaign  to  the  select 
company  of  the  great  captains.  War 
still  remained  an  art.     From  his  saddle 

B  Johnston,  "What  Could  Napoleon  Accomplish  To- 
Day?"    Nineteenth    Century ^   December,   1914. 

87 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

the  commander  could  still  follow  the 
evolutions  of  his  army  on  the  field, 
could  control  all  its  divisions,  could  ring 
the  changes  on  all  the  combinations  of 
horse,  foot,  and  guns.  If  the  infantry 
was  less  steady,  it  was  quicker  in  its 
movements ;  if  the  cavalry  was  less  reg- 
ular, it  had  more  initiative;  while  the 
guns  were  constantly  gaining  in  impor- 
tance. ''There  is  no  natural  order  of 
battle,"  declared  Napoleon.  But  out 
of  the  newborn  confusion  and  scurry 
the  Corsican's  logical  mind  could  al- 
ways evoke  the  massed  blow  or  circling 
swoop  that  presaged  the  flight  of  the 
enemy. 

Let  us  sum  up.  The  eighteenth  cen- 
tury is  the  age  of  military  despots,  rul- 
ing great  countries.  But  those  coun- 
tries have  not  yet  come  to  national  con- 
sciousness and  accept  more  or  less  the 
38 


THE  ART  OF  WAR 

divine  right  of  their  rulers.  Force  is  in 
an  immediate  sense  the  stabilizing  me- 
dium of  society;  and  force  is  concen- 
trated in  the  sovereign's  hands.  The 
professional  army  takes  the  natural 
enough  mold  of  a  caste.  The  aristocrat 
is  the  officer;  and  he  commands  a  well- 
defined  class  of  man,  the  professional 
soldier.  Together  they  rise,  before  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  to  an  ex- 
traordinary pitch  of  professional  at- 
tainment and  courage;  while  the  art  of 
war  develops  the  most  severe  contacts 
and  hazardous  adjustments.  Craft 
and  science  and  intrepidity  in  bound- 
less measure  are  to  be  found  in  the  men 
who  reach  the  pinnacle  of  the  most  ter- 
rifying of  the  arts.  Marlborough  at 
Blenheim,  Frederick  at  Leuthen, 
Napoleon  at  Austerlitz,  tasted  in  their 
supreme  form  the  joy  which  primitive 
39 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

man  feels  in  combat,  but  combat  trans- 
formed into  its  most  polished  possibili- 
ties. The  French  Revolution  was  des- 
tined to  change  all  that,  to  change  war 
so  profoundly  that  even  the  greatest  of 
generals  proved  unable  to  keep  up  with 
the  transformation. 


40 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   NATIONAL   ARMY 

BY  successive  stages,  between  the 
14th  of  July,  1789,  and  the  14th 
of  October,  1806,  the  professional  army 
of  the  eighteenth  century  was  shattered 
by  the  rising  tide  of  nationalism.  On 
the  first  of  these  dates  the  people  of 
Paris  imposed  their  will  on  Louis  XVI, 
who  withdrew  his  troops  from  their 
gates,  and  on  the  second  the  conscript 
army  of  France  destroyed  the  splendid 
fighting  machine  which  Frederick  had 
bequeathed  to  his  successors.  After 
this,  the  professional  army  disappears 
in  Continental  Europe. 

When  the  French  National  Assem- 
41 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

bly  took  over  the  army  from  the  King, 
the  rank  and  file  were  already  much  de- 
moralized. Pay  was  heavily  in  arrears ; 
mutiny  was  in  the  air;  seditious  ideas 
were  being  propagated.  The  Assem- 
bly completed  the  work  by  making  it 
illegal  under  certain  conditions  for  the 
soldier  to  obey  his  superior,  and  by  sup- 
pressing the  foundation  of  the  whole 
edifice  of  the  current  infantry  tactics, 
the  cat  o'  nine  tails.  The  soldier  was 
now  a  citizen  in  the  enjoyment  of  the 
rights  of  a  free  man,  and  he  might  not 
be  subjected  to  punishments  derogatory 
to  his  new-born  privileges  and  dignity. 
All  this  was,  of  course,  quite  as  it 
should  be.  But  it  had  a  drawback. 
The  quality  of  the  French  army  was 
reduced,  its  discipline  was  seriously  af- 
fected. It  became  immensely  more 
difficult  to  bring  infantry  up  to  the  tac- 
42 


THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 

tical  shock,  and  that  at  the  very  moment 
when  the  increase  in  the  intensity  and 
range  of  fire  apparently  demanded  of 
troops  an  even  greater  degree  of  energy 
and  tactical  cohesion  than  in  the  past. 
The  upshot  was  that  when  the  First 
Republic  became  involved  in  war  with 
the  rest  of  Europe,  its  armies  proved 
much  inferior  to  those  of  the  Bourbon 
monarchy. 

How  was  it  then  that  the  Republic 
fought  its  way  to  eventual  success,  that 
it  saved  its  existence  at  Valmy  and 
Fleurus,  and  imposed  its  will  on  its 
enemies  at  Mantua,  Zurich  and  Hohen- 
linden?  There  were  four  chief  rea- 
sons: 1°.  the  artillery;  2"".  the  new  art 
of  war;  3°.  the  social  revolution;  4°. 
numbers.  Let  us  glance  at  each  of 
these  in  turn. 

At  Valmy,  two  days  before  the  Re- 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

public  was  proclaimed,  the  Duke  of 
Brunswick  apparently  had  the  French 
army  at  his  mercy;  but  the  great  con- 
centration of  batteries  along  the  French 
front  made  him  hesitate  and  finally  de- 
cline to  attack.  One  of  the  decisive 
victories  of  history  had  been  won  at  a 
cost  to  the  victors  of  less  than  two  per 
cent,  in  killed  and  wounded.  The  ex- 
cellence of  the  artillery,  from  which  arm 
the  greatest  of  French  generals  was 
soon  to  emerge,  played  a  great  part  in 
all  the  campaigns  that  followed  in  stif- 
fening the  armies  of  the  Republic. 

When  those  armies  had  begun  to 
find  themselves,  let  us  say  towards  the 
close  of  the  year  1793,  they  revealed 
certain  peculiarities,  some  defects  and 
some  qualities.  For  one  thing,  they 
were  ragged  and  unkempt,  inade- 
quately clothed  and  equipped.  The 
44 


THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 

Government  was  bankrupt;  transport 
and  rations  failed.  What  was  an  army 
to  do  under  those  circumstances? 
What  the  French  army  did  was  to  neg- 
lect parade  and  appearances;  to  devote 
more  time  to  marching  and  forestalling 
the  enemy;  and  to  live  on  the  country. 
All  this  meant  rapid  movement  and  a 
greater  capacity  for  obtaining  strategic 
advantages,  thereby  balancing  in  a 
measure  tactical  weakness. 

But  whatever  strategical  advantage 
an  army  may  obtain,  there  always 
comes  the  moment  when  the  tactical  de- 
cision must  be  fought  for.  The  artil- 
lery could  not  do  the  business  alone. 
How  was  one  to  get  the  best  results 
from  the  French  infantry  on  the  field? 
To  deploy  that  infantry  on  a  wide  front 
developing  its  musketry  fire  to  the  full- 
est extent  would  clearly  be  useless 
45 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

against  the  more  rigidly  trained  infan- 
try that  would  have  to  be  faced.  Even 
at  Jena,  in  1806,  deployed  French  in- 
fantry could  not  stand  against  the 
Prussians  when  they  met  fairly  face 
to  face.  Discipline  had  been  low- 
ered far  too  much  to  leave  the  French 
on  anything  like  equal  terms  at  that 
game.  If,  however,  battle  were  joined 
on  ground  that  was  fairly  broken,  then 
skirmishers  and  small  columns, 
strongly  backed  by  mobile  guns  and 
cavalry,  might  effect  something.  And 
the  small  column  came  into  large  use 
and  typified  better  than  anything  else 
the  changes  brought  about  by  the  Rev- 
olution. 

A  column  of  a  half  battalion  was  one 
of  the  easiest  formations  to  teach  a  raw 
soldier ;  easiest  in  which  to  retain  tacti- 
cal control  or  cohesion ;  easiest  in  which 
46 


THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 

to  manoeuver  with  rapidity  from  one 
position  to  another.^  Then  again,  in 
this  sort  of  formation,  it  was  the  head 
of  the  column  that  counted  for  every- 
thing. A  dozen  officers  and  non-com- 
missioned officers  and  a  dozen  brave 
soldiers  in  the  lead  might  carry  along 
several  hundred  skulkers  and  cowards 
in  a  dash  on  the  enemy.  Now  the 
Revolution  had  ordained  that  its  armies 
should  be  made  up  of  a  large  undis- 
ciplined mass,  inclined  therefore  to 
skulk,  and  of  a  small  proportion  of  men 
before  whom  it  had  set  the  greatest  of 
human  prizes.  The  private  soldier 
might  rise  to  the  highest  command ;  and 
he  did.  A  sub-lieutenant  of  artillery 
became  an  emperor;  a  private  dragoon 
became  a  king  and  so  did  a  simple  gren- 

1  Space  forbids  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  diffi- 
culties attending  line  manoeuvers  of  the  Frederickian 
period,  and  of  the  questions  of  time  involved. 

47 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

adier;  several  private  soldiers  became 
Marshals  of  France.  These  were  the 
men  who  carried  the  tricolor  at  the 
heads  of  the  charging  columns,  and 
gave  the  French  armies,  notwithstand- 
ing the  skulkers,  their  irresistible  qual- 
ity. It  was  the  fanaticism  of  the  social 
revolution. 

This  fanaticism  of  the  social  revolu- 
tion took  on  an  aspect  which  may  be 
summed  up  in  a  word  of  much  import 
for  the  evolution  of  armies  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  word  initiative. 
Initiative  in  the  general  sense  of  the 
word  was  the  bold  individualism  of  {he 
men  who  by  their  example  lent  force 
and  coherence  to  the  armed  mob.  It 
was  the  great  quality  of  the  Army  of 
Italy  in  1796;  and  it  might  have  become 
in  an  organized  form  a  great  force  in 
the  armies  of  the  Empire;  we  shall  see 
48 


THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 

presently  why  things  took  a  different 
turn. 

One  more  reason  needs  stating  to  ex- 
plain the  victories  of  the  armies  of  the 
Republic:  they  generally  outnumbered 
their  opponents,  and  it  was  as  well,  for 
they  sometimes  required  a  preponder- 
ance of  two  to  one  to  succeed.  If  the 
nation  could  not  be  saved  by  the  old 
army,  then  let  every  citizen  arm  him- 
self and  fly  to  the  frontier!  The  re- 
sponse to  this  appeal  was  excellent  in 
1791,  moderately  good  in  1792  and 
even  in  1793.  But  after  that,  difficul- 
ties grew;  until  in  1798  the  first  real 
conscription  law  was  passed.  Under 
this  system,  which  was  soon  copied 
throughout  the  Continent,  the  armed 
nation  was  deliberately  substituted  for 
the  older  standing  army.  Before  ex- 
amining the  institution  at  work  during 
49 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

the  following  fifteen  years,  we  may  first 
note  that  the  fundamental  character 
of  the  change  passed  almost  unnoticed. 
It  was  a  time  of  stress  and  passion. 
The  new  France,  stained  with  blood, 
tarnished  with  bankruptcy,  desperately 
facing  the  brink  of  destruction,  was 
driven  to  any  and  every  means  for  pre- 
serving her  hard-won  institutions.  So 
conscription  passed  as  an  emergency 
measure  for  strengthening  the  army, 
merely  as  an  extreme  means  for  meet- 
ing a  ruinous  situation. 

But  what  did  conscription  really  sig- 
nify? Take  the  answer  in  terms  reach- 
ing from  the  French  measure  of  1798 
to  what  we  see  in  this  year  1915.  It 
meant  substituting  the  ordinary  citizen 
for  the  professional  soldier;  it  meant 
sending  up  to  the  firing  line  not  men 
ready  and  willing  to  face  the  supreme 
50 


THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 

risk  but  men  for  the  most  part  with  no 
such  disposition,  ordinary  citizens,  pro- 
fessional men,  lawyers,  merchants,  art- 
ists, even  in  one  country  to-day,  priests. 
It  is  a  shocking  thing  that  modern  civ- 
ilization should  arrive  at  such  a  system 
as  that.  Yet  in  the  working  of  the 
system  valid  distinctions  can  be  drawn, 
as  will  appear  in  later  chapters.  For 
there  is  a  gulf  between  a  State  in  which 
the  conscript  soldier  can  be  spoken  of  as 
pulverfutter,  food  for  cannon,  and  the 
State  in  which  he  is  a  neighbor  among 
neighbors,  armed  for  the  defense  of  his 
home  and  with  no  aggressive  intent. 

Let  us  turn  once  more  to  the  art  of 
war,  and  consider  how  these  matters, 
particularly  numbers,  affected  its  con- 
duct. Bonaparte  became  master  of 
France  in  the  year  following  that  in 
which  conscription  was  established. 
51 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

In  1805  began  the  wars  of  the  Empire, 
and  by  the  following  year  a  vast  in- 
crease in  the  size  of  the  French  armies 
set  in.  Steadily  they  grew  until  in 
1812  Napoleon,  whose  first  army  had 
amounted  to  less  than  50,000  men, 
found  himself  at  the  head  of  half  a  mil- 
lion. It  is  interesting  to  consider  this 
fact  in  connection  with  two  things :  the 
generalship  of  Napoleon,  and  the 
growth  of  national  armies. 

With  Napoleon  what  we  find  is  this : 
He  is  unwilling  to  recognise  that  the 
growth  of  armies,  and  the  widening  of 
strategic  and  tactical  areas,  demand  a 
system  of  command  different  from  that 
which  had  obtained  during  all  the  cen- 
turies. He  is  further  unwilling  to 
recognise  that  the  plan  for  employing 
a  large  national  army  demands  a  dif- 
ferent sort  of  reasoning  from  that  for 
52 


THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 

employing  a  small  professional  one. 
And  in  his  struggle  against  Russia  he 
is  half  blind  to  the  fact  that  even  add- 
ing strategy  to  tactics  does  not  cover 
the  function  of  war,  but  that  it  may, 
under  given  circumstances,  become  a 
duel  in  terms  of  economic  resources. 

It  is  sometimes  difficult  to  disen- 
tangle in  Napoleon  what  is  logical  from 
what  is  merely  craving  for  power. 
Unity  was  one  of  these  double-faced 
obsessions.  There  must  be  unity  of 
conmiand.  There  must  never  be  two 
armies  in  the  same  field  of  operations. 
The  first  statement  might,  under  con- 
ditions, be  true.  The  second  could  not 
remain  true  under  the  extension  of  war- 
fare then  proceeding.  More  than  one 
army  has  to  be  employed  in  the  field  of 
operations  of  1805,  Napoleon's  and 
Massena's;  more  than  one  in  1809, 
53 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

Napoleon's  and  Prince  Eugene's ;  more 
than  one  in  1813.  But  he  tries  not  to 
see  the  truth;  he  chngs  desperately  to 
his  old  ideal  of  the  hero-despot  v/ho 
from  the  saddle  controls  the  military 
drama  in  its  entirety  as  it  unfolds  be- 
fore him. 

In  1812  he  set  out  to  defeat  Russia 
by  the  sheer  accumulation  of  numbers 
against  her;  just  as  de  Gribeauval  be- 
lieved in  accumulating  fire  and  batter- 
ing a  hole  at  a  given  point.  But  the 
scale  is  wholly  unsuitable,  and  in  more 
than  one  way.  He  writes  to  Davout: 
"The  object  of  all  my  manoeuvers  is  to 
concentrate  400,000  men  at  a  given 
point."  Again  a  pure  obsession,  and 
hopeless  in  practice.  For  at  that  mo- 
ment he  had  before  him  two  widely  sep- 
arated Russian  armies,  in  a  vast  theater 
of  war  of  scanty  resources,  and  those 
54 


THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 

armies  amounted  one  to  100,000  men, 
the  other  to  50,000  men.  A  concentra- 
tion of  400,000  men  at  either  of  these 
points,  if  feasible,  was  merely  the  grati- 
fication of  an  inordinate  craving  for 
mass  and  for  power;  as  a  practical  meas- 
ure it  could  only  lead  to  the  paralyzing 
of  the  army  from  undue  concentration 
in  a  poor  country,  while  the  numbers 
were  too  large  to  serve  any  adequate 
purpose. 

Then  again,  following  up  the  same 
line  of  thought,  we  find  Napoleon  at- 
tempting to  handle  the  main  army  of 
invasion  on  a  single  line  of  supply.  And 
that  line  of  supply,  overstrained  by  its 
burden,  broke  down  at  the  very  outset 
of  the  campaign.  With  von  Moltke, 
a  very  different  mode  of  thought  would 
have  prevailed.  No  attempt  would 
have  been  made  to  concentrate  against 
55 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

the  Russian  armies  a  larger  force  than 
one  sufficient  to  defeat  them.  The 
army  would  have  been  broken  up  into 
several  groups  of  quicker  action  be- 
cause smaller;  and  it  would  have  been 
backed  by  troops  of  the  second  line  to 
make  secure  the  lines  of  communication 
and  to  obtain  firm  possession  of  the 
country  behind  the  field  army. 

If  Napoleon  displayed  unwillingness 
to  devise  new  methods  to  meet  new 
conditions,  the  reason  is  easily  found  in 
his  inordinate  craving  for  power.  He 
grasps,  but  does  not  construct.  Long 
before  armies  had  swollen  to  immense 
proportions,  h6  had  shown  a  jealous 
fear  of  entrusting  power  to  others. 
Apart  from  Massena,  Davout,  Soult, 
Lannes,  Murat,  few  of  his  marshals  or 
generals  ever  knew  their  master's  inten- 
tions. They  feared,  and  obeyed  orders 
56 


THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 

in  a  literal  sense.  Initiative  was 
slowly  and  surely  paralyzed,  and  that 
at  the  very  time  when  the  necessity  for 
some  means  of  coordinating  the  move- 
ments of  greater  armies  over  vast  areas 
became  more  and  more  pressing. 

The  Prussians,  under  the  spur  of 
their  disasters,  began  learning  at  the 
point  where  Napoleon  left  off.  Even 
before  Jena  they  had  begun  to  perceive 
that  with  increased  armies  something 
rather  more  elaborate  than  a  one-man 
command  was  necessary  for  effective 
control.  For  many  years  there  had 
been  a  staff,  in  the  sense  of  a  quarter- 
master's and  an  adjutant's  office.  To- 
wards the  close  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury this  developed  into  a  body  of  of- 
ficers trained,  among  other  things,  in 
reconnaissance  duties  and  the  guiding 
of  troops. 

57 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

Von  Massenbach,  who  was  later 
Chief  of  Staff  to  Prince  Holenlohe  in 
the  Jena  campaign  and  earned  the 
name  of  the  ''evil  genius  of  Prussia," 
initiated  reforms  just  before  the  Jena 
campaign  that  were  carried  further  by 
Scharnhorst  in  the  years  following  that 
disaster.  A  staff  corps  on  modern 
lines  was  developed,  and  so  rapidly  did 
it  progress  that  one  of  the  best  German 
staff  officers  of  recent  times  declared 
that  "the  work  done  by  the  Headquarter 
Staff  of  the  Silesian  Army  [1813-14] 
may  be  taken  as  an  example  of  effi- 
ciency even  at  the  present  day."  ^ 
Officers  were  trained  in  the  technical 
details  of  the  control  of  armies  during 
field  operations.  And  while  the  topo- 
graphical work  naturally  plays  a  large 

2  Bronsart  von  Schellendorf,  "Duties  of  the  Gen- 
eral Staff."    War  Office,  London. 

58 


THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 

part  in  the  early  history  of  this  organi- 
zation, it  is  interesting  to  note  from  the 
earhest  days  the  insistence  on  the 
higher  education  of  army  officers  for 
field  duties  and  on  the  fundamental  im- 
portance of  the  Historical  Section  of 
the  General  Staff. 

Scharnhorst  is  probably  less  well 
known  for  his  development  of  the  Gen- 
eral Staff  system,  or  system  of  army 
control  by  groups  of  experts,  than  by 
his  organization  of  the  new  model 
Prussian  army.  By  the  treaty  of  Til- 
sit in  1807  Napoleon  dictated  to  Prus- 
sia the  reduction  of  her  army  to  42,000 
men  and  no  more.  Prussia  was  not 
prepared  to  accept  her  virtual  relega- 
tion among  the  minor  States,  and  deter- 
mined to  regain  her  position  among  the 
nations.  To  effect  this  purpose  an 
army  of  42,000  men,  whatever  degree 
59 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

of  perfection  it  might  be  brought  to, 
was  clearly  useless.  Numbers  were 
necessary.  The  problem  then  was  how, 
while  keeping  no  more  than  42,000  men 
with  the  colors,  to  be  able  to  place  a 
large  army  in  the  field  in  case  of  war. 

Scharnhorst's  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem brings  us  to  another  and  an  essen- 
tial feature  of  the  national  army:  the 
system  of  expansion  through  reserves. 
Since  Scharnhorst's  day  it  has  been 
adopted  in  some  form  or  other  by  every 
nation  in  the  world,  except  the  United 
States,  which  still  retains  an  army  of 
eighteenth-century  design.  And  it  is 
the  most  pacific  and  complete  democ- 
racy of  Europe,  Switzerland,  that  has 
carried  the  system  to  its  logical  and  ex- 
treme conclusion. 

The  Prussian  device  was  quite  sim- 
ple. It  merely  consisted  in  treating 
60 


THE  NATIONAL  ARMY 

the  42,000  not  as  an  army,  but  as  the 
skeleton  of  an  army.  By  having  a 
large  proportion  of  officers  and  non- 
commissioned officers,  by  providing  the 
arms  and  supplies  and  battalion  organi- 
zations for  three,  four,  and  even  five 
times  the  number  of  men  present,  it 
was  possible  to  train  men  in  as  brief  a 
time  as  possible,  and  then  to  pass  them 
out  of  the  ranks  as  trained  reservists 
liable  to  be  called  up  in  time  of  war. 
So  well  did  the  system  work  that  in 
1813,  when  it  had  barely  had  the  time  to 
show  results,  Prussia  succeeded  in  get- 
ting a  quarter  of  a  million  of  men 
in  the  field.  The  troops  were  of  poor 
quahty,  of  course ;  they  would  have  hor- 
rified Frederick.  But  intense  patriot- 
ism, the  doggedness  of  Bliicher,  and  the 
immense  services  of  the  General  Staff 
in  coordinating  the  efforts  of  the  army, 
61 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

pulled  it  through  to  the  great  triumpK 
of  Leipzig. 

It  may  therefore  be  said  that  the  na- 
tional army,  full  fledged,  as  we  find  it 
at  the  fall  of  Napoleon,  presents  the 
following  characteristics:  It  has  large 
numbers;  the  training  is  hasty;  the 
quality  of  the  line  is  poor;  the  effective 
direction  and  control  of  its  masses  re- 
quires a  body  of  staff  experts;  it  is  an 
expansive  force,  a  skeleton  in  peace  but 
in  war,  ultimately,  the  armed  nation. 
With  these  characteristics  in  mind,  we 
can  turn  to  the  developments  of  the 
century  that  follows  Waterloo  and  in- 
vestigate the  growth  of  national  pol- 
icies based  largely  on  the  new  style  con- 
script or  national  armies. 


CHAPTER  IV 

NATIONAL    MILITARY    POLICIES 

A  GREAT  idea  underlies  the  na- 
tional army  when  we  compare  it 
with  the  professional  army  of  an 
earlier  epoch.  The  monarch  by  divine 
right,  proprietor  of  his  kingdom  and  of 
his  army,  viewed  the  latter  as  a  per- 
manent force,  normally  ready,  or  al- 
most ready,  for  war.  Territorial  ac- 
quisition was  an  ever-present  aim,  and 
inevitably  necessitated  violence.  After 
the  French  Revolution,  all  this  tends  to 
change,  although  the  agitations  of  the 
epoch  obscure  to  some  extent  the  un- 
derlying fact.  Yet  if  armies  are  a  citi- 
zen force,  and  if  in  time  of  peace  they 
63 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

are  maintained  in  skeleton  outline  only, 
then,  normally,  a  clearly  defined  nation 
with  self-government  will  view  terri- 
torial acquisition  as  an  unusual  act,  and 
war  as  exceptional.  Unfortunately 
for  Europe,  its  nationalities  were  not 
well  defined  in  1815;  self-government 
is  still  far  from  wholly  achieved ;  expan- 
sion— racial,  economic,  colonial — fur- 
ther complicate  the  situation. 

When  Napoleon  fell,  France  in  the 
West  and  Russia  in  the  East  were 
nearer  to  national  self-realization  than 
the  great  jumble  of  Teutonic,  Slav,  and 
Latin  people  that  lay  in  between.  The 
nationalistic  revolutions  of  1821,  1830, 
and  1848  showed  what  profound  dissat- 
isfaction existed;  and  the  upshot  came 
in  the  war  of  1859,  that  created  a 
united  Italy,  and  the  wars  of  1866  and 
1870  that  created  a  larger  Germany, 
64 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

We  are  not  concerned  here  with  trac- 
ing or  analyzing  these  great  convul- 
sions, but  merely  in  noting  their  influ- 
ence on  the  more  limited  question  be- 
fore us. 

With  such  conditions  of  national 
overcrowding  and  national  aspiration 
as  Europe  presented,  great  military 
struggles  were  inevitable.  The  effects 
of  these  on  armies  and  the  policies  be- 
hind them  are  important  to  trace, 
though  these  effects  varied  greatly  in 
the  different  States.  In  Prussia-Ger- 
many an  extreme  was  reached  in  one 
direction;  in  Switzerland  in  another; 
while  in  Belgium  negative  results  only 
can  be  traced.  An  investigation  of  the 
national  policies  or  attitudes  developed 
in  these  three  typical  cases  must  serve 
to  illustrate  the  wider  question;  while 
a  few  comparisons  with  conditions  in 
65 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

the  United  States  will  serve  to  close 
the  topic. 

After  her  great  effort  in  the  War  of 
Liberation,  Prussia  became  somewhat 
negligent  of  her  army,  and  met  with  a 
disagreeable  surprise  in  consequence. 
She  found  herself  powerless  in  the  un- 
expected crisis  of  1850,  and  had  to  ac- 
cept humiliating  terms  imposed  on  her 
by  Austria.  She  then  started  on  an 
upward  path  and  within  a  few  years 
von  Roon  became  Minister  of  War; 
von  Moltke,  Chief  of  the  General  Staff ; 
and  von  Bismarck,  Foreign  Minister. 

Von  Roon  demanded  increased  num- 
bers. The  Prussian  assembly  de- 
clined, almost  unanimously,  to  vote  the 
necessary  sums  of  money.  It  reflected 
the  normal  new  attitude,  the  natural  re-, 
luctance  of  national  representatives  to 
increase  an  army  and  correspondingly 
66 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

to  increase  taxation  beyond  what  obvi- 
ous necessity  appeared  to  demand.  It 
was  true  that  Prussia,  owing  to  the 
weakness  of  her  army,  had  been  unable 
to  reahze  certain  ambitions,  of  the 
Hohenzollerns  on  the  one  hand,  of  the 
German  people  on  the  other.  Yet 
Prussia's  own  existence  and  integrity 
were  not  directly  menaced,  and  her 
army  was  in  any  case  powerful  enough 
to  impose  respect  on  a  possible  assail- 
ant. So  why  should  not  Prussia  mind 
her  own  business,  leave  the  army  alone, 
and  attend  to  economic  and  social  ques- 
tions? That  is  a  fair  description  of  the 
attitude  of  the  Prussian  assembly  in  its 
resistance  to  army  increase. 

Year  after  year  von  Roon  urged  his 

case,    and    failed.     Finally    Bismarck 

was  brought  in,  the  most  forceful  figure 

of  Europe  since  Napoleon.     To  him  it 

67 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

seemed  that  Prussia  should  struggle 
towards  a  goal,  of  which  Pan-German- 
ism now  appears  the  not-far-distant  ac- 
complishment. To  attain  his  ob  j  ects, — 
the  creation  of  a  greater  and  Prussian- 
ized Germany, — an  army  and  a  policy 
of  expansion  were  necessary.  And 
when  he  met  the  Budget  Committee  of 
the  Landtag  to  discuss  with  them  army 
appropriations  and  increase,  he  roundly 
declared  to  them,  his  fist  on  the  table, 
that  his  poUcy  was  one  of  "blood  and 
iron!" 

Blood  and  Iron!  All  Germany 
shuddered  at  this  cynical  and  brutal 
formula,  though  at  the  present  time 
people  are  a  little  apt  to  forget  this 
quite  important  fact.  All  Germany 
shuddered.  Bismarck  stood  alone, 
with  a  few  thin-lipped  soldiers  drawn 
up  at  attention  behind  him.  And  even 
68 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

among  high-placed  officials  in  Berlin  it 
was  whispered  that  he  was  demented,  a 
lunatic  who  ought  to  be  locked  up. 
Unfortunately  there  was  more  in  what 
he  said  than  they  could  realize  for  the 
moment.  The  policy  he  intended  to 
carry  out  by  violence  was  irresistibly 
driven  by  deep  acting  waves  flowing 
steadily  towards  that  very  shore  on 
which  Bismarck  had  set  his  over-eager 
eyes.  And,  to  make  things  worse,  the 
intellect  of  Europe  happened  at  that 
time  to  be  captivated  by  those  theories 
of  man  struggling  in  nature  which  Dar- 
win had  made  fashionable.  In  the 
struggle  for  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
were  not  blood  and  iron  inevitable  fac- 
tors? German  intellectualism  pressed 
in  where  plain  people  would  not  have 
ventured.  The  historians  of  Prussia, 
their  minds  aglow  with  the  exploits  of 
69 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

Frederick  and  the  men  of  1813,  were 
the  first  to  accept  the  new  formula. 
Von  Sybel  was  already  at  Bismarck's 
beck  and  call.  Von  Treitschke,  at 
first  one  of  his  most  bitter  critics,  got  so 
much  light  from  the  lifting  of  Schles- 
wig-Holstein  that  he  promptly  found 
religion  and  discovered  one  hundred 
historical  reasons  why  Schleswig-Hol- 
stein  really  belonged  to  Prussia!  In 
reality  there  were  not  one  hundred  rea- 
sons but  one  only,  which  Treitschke 
forgot  to  mention: — Bismarck;  or,  if 
the  reader  prefers,  blood  and  iron! 

This  rapid  conversion  of  German  in- 
tellectualism  to  the  Bismarckian  creed 
was  one  of  the  great  facts  lying  behind 
the  policies  which  the  world  sees  in  ac- 
tion as  these  lines  are  written.  It  will 
be  necessary  to  consider  some  further 
aspects  of  German  idealism  in  due 
70 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

course.  But  for  the  present,  we  may- 
take  a  glance  at  the  two  great  wars  of 
the  reformed  Prussian  army  through 
which,  while  von  Moltke  was  defeating 
the  Austrian  and  French  armies,  Bis- 
marck was  creating  the  new  Germany. 

Very  false  impressions  exist  as  to 
what  the  Prussian  army  accomplished 
in  the  campaigns  of  1866  and  of  1870. 
Victory  over  opponents  who  were  badly 
led,  and  in  some  respects  deficient,  led 
to  the  creation  of  a  legend  immensely 
removed  from  the  truth.  To  state  the 
case  within  the  present  limits  is  evi- 
dently not  possible ;  but  some  indication 
of  the  truth  may  be  attempted,  as  it 
would  appear  to  the  student  of  military 
history.  Our  attention  will  be  concen- 
trated on  the  campaign  of  1870-71. 

The  two  armies  opposed  differed  in 
several  particulars.  On  the  Prusso- 
71 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

German  side  the  emphasis  on  numbers 
had  produced  an  army  numerically  su- 
perior to  the  French,  but  inferior  in  the 
solidity  of  its  infantry  because  the  term 
of  service  was  shorter.  The  first  line 
of  the  French  troops,  as  unit  to  unit, 
showed  much  greater  cohesion  than 
their  opponents.  Deployment  for  bat- 
tle was  better  on  defensive  positions 
even  though  the  tactical  guidance  for 
the  offensive  was  less  skilful,  in  fact 
hopelessly  inferior.  Each  of  the  two 
armies  was  so  large  that  its  control 
proved  a  difficult  problem.  This  was 
fairly  well  solved  by  the  Germans — 
that  is,  they  did  employ  a  system  of 
control  and  attained  high  strategic 
mobility;  the  French  had  no  real  staff 
guidance  beyond  the  primitive  expedi- 
ent of  a  staff  attached  to  the  person  of 
the  commander  in  the  field.  This  was 
72 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

selected  from  the  Etat  Major  General, 
a  corps  of  special  officers  created 
shortly  after  the  close  of  the  Napoleonic 
wars. 

The  officers  of  the  German  General 
Staff  were  specially  trained  to  keep 
moving  smoothly  the  innumerable 
wheels  of  a  large  machine  of  men  and 
transport  unrolled  over  an  immense 
stretch  of  country  and  attempting  to 
reach  and  overpower  an  imperfectly 
located  opponent.  They  had  all  been 
taught  the  same  general  principles; 
they  applied  similar  solutions  to  similar 
problems;  and  roughly  succeeded  more 
or  less  well  in  keeping  the  armies  in  mo- 
tion, getting  them  together  on  the  field 
of  battle,  and  feeding  up  the  firing  lines 
as  rapidly  and  insistently  as  possible. 
None  of  these  things  could  be  done  with 
the  French  army. 

73 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

Again,  in  the  German  army,  a  new 
and  very  powerful  artillery  was  used 
with  boldness  and  some  tactical  skill, 
while  the  French  guns  remained  infe- 
rior at  every  point.  The  Germans  pro- 
duced in  von  Moltke  a  good  leader, 
where  the  French  showed  mostly  in- 
capacity and  lack  of  military  education. 
In  these  things  alone,  differences  were 
to  be  found  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
disasters  of  the  French  army.  Yet  it 
does  not  follow  from  these  things  that 
the  German  army  was  anything  like  a 
perfect  machine  as  it  is  so  often  repre- 
sented to  have  been.  That  was,  in- 
deed, very  far  from  being  the  case. 

It  was  not  unnatural  that  the  over- 
powering successes  of  the  German 
armies  at  Metz  and  Sedan  should  have 
created  an  impression  of  perfection  and 
invincibility.  Writers  inexpert  in  mil- 
74 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

itary  matters  trumpeted  this  opinion 
loudly.  The  newspaper  man,  now 
coming  to  his  brief  harvest  in  the  field 
of  war,  made  the  matter  even  worse. 
Germany,  intent  on  building  up  the 
prestige  of  the  budding  empire,  gave 
official  color  to  these  ideas  through  the 
history  of  the  war  composed  by  the 
General  Staff.  But  while  the  official 
panegyrists  were  cooking  the  accounts, 
a  number  of  unofficial  persons,  Ger- 
mans trained  for  war,  observant  and 
thoughtful,  were  beginning  to  put  to- 
gether in  a  purely  detached  and  scien- 
tific spirit  the  ideas  which  they  had  gar- 
nered from  the  battlefield.  Broadly 
speaking  they  were  specially  impressed 
with  the  weakness  of  infantrj^  under 
modern  conditions,  the  difficulty  of 
maintaining  tactical  cohesion,  the  crude- 
ness  of  the  method  of  control  evolved 
75 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

hy  the  General  Staff.  These  points, 
leaving  some  others  on  one  side,  de- 
serve attention  because  of  the  impor- 
tant deduction  to  which  they  lead. 

The  problem  in  effect  was  this: 
With  the  intensity  of  fire  attained  by 
modern  armaments  (in  1870)  the  com- 
bat and  the  tactical  formations  have 
become  correspondingly  loose.  How 
is  one,  with  this  looseness,  to  control 
scattered  bodies  of  men,  so  as  to  main- 
tain their  cohesion,  keep  their  direction, 
and  force  them  up  to  the  shock?  And 
further,  how  can  this  be  done  in  correct 
relation  to  other  bodies  to  the  right  and 
left  and  at  the  opportune  moment? 
The  first  was  a  tactical,  the  second  a 
staff  problem.  The  latter  may  be  dis- 
missed, for  our  purpose,  as  merely  in- 
dicating the  immense  importance  of  a 
proper  system  of  training  for  the  staff 
76 


MILITAKY  POLICIES 

and  higher  command  of  an  army.  But 
the  tactical  problem  presents  further 
points  of  interest. 

It  was  quite  evident  to  honest  Ger- 
man investigators  that  under  modern 
conditions  of  intensified  fire,  shorter 
training,  and  looser  tactics,  their  infan- 
try tended  to  dissolve  into  a  mob. 
And  mobs  inevitably  are  less  inclined  to 
face  trouble  than  to  escape  it.  Evi- 
dently the  greatest  efforts  must  be 
made  to  obtain  infantry  leading 
highly  trained  in  maintaining  cohesion, 
continuous  advance,  proper  direction, 
and  the  best  tactical  shock.  But  with 
whatever  pains  this  difficult  standard 
might  be  pursued,  there  would  still  be 
the  flinching  of  the  individual  soldier 
to  overcome,  an  almost  insuperable  dif- 
ficulty as  the  experience  of  1870  seemed 
to  show.  "The  only  things,"  wrote 
77 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

Honig,  ''that  can  furnish  a  substitute 
for  the  lowered  action  of  the  leaders  on 
the  masses,  are  a  more  developed  senti- 
ment .  .  .  and  the  national  principle 
of  honor.  ...  If  a  national  injury  to 
honor,  or  to  territory,  and  so  forth, 
were  felt  in  equal  degree  by  each  indi- 
vidual, .  .  .  causing  him  to  require 
satisfaction  and  to  pledge  from  his  in- 
nermost sentiments  body  and  life  for 
this,  then  Tactics  would  have  an  easy 
game  to  play.  .  .  .  Mahomet  was  the 
type  of  an  army  psychologist.  ...  In 
war  that  which  is  highest  must  be 
sought  in  the  soul  .  .  .  and  the  fight- 
ing method  must  correspond  to  it,  must 
be  national.  .  .  .  Nations  which  desire 
to  gain  something  .  .  .  will  as  a  rule 
possess  in  their  armies  more  operative 
imponderables  [trans,  freely:  rooted 
prejudices!^  than  others  do  .  •  .  that 
78 


I 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

merely  desire  to  hold,  that  is  to  protect 
their  property,  their  position  among 
the  nations."  ^ 

This  idea,  that  the  nation  must  be 
fanaticized,  for  this  is  what  it  amounts 
to,  was  the  cry  of  despair  of  the  tacti- 
cian at  the  ineffectiveness  of  modern 
infantry  for  getting  a  decision  by  shock. 
It  was  largely  acted  on  in  Germany 
during  the  period  preceding  the  war 
of  1914,  and  reinforced  the  previous 
acceptance  by  the  intellectuals  of  the 
Bismarckian  doctrine  of  Blood  and 
Iron.  The  nation  was  trained  to  think 
in  artificial  terms  all  tending  to  fanati- 
cize  the  rank  and  file  and  thereby  to  in- 
crease efficiency.^ 

iHonig,  "Tactics  of  the  Future,"  4th  Edit.  Part 
II.     Sect.  1,  3  and  4. 

2  German  militarist  psychology  is  a  large  and  diffi- 
cult subject,  that  can  obviously  only  be  touched  on 
here.  The  origin  of  it  goes  back  to  the  Bismarckian 
policies;    the   impetus   comes    from   the   Franco-Ger- 

79 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

In  the  ultimate  result — the  German 
armed  nation  of  1914 — we  see  the  mo- 
mentary combination  of  the  citizen 
army  with  a  positive  military  spirit 
akin  to  that  of  the  earlier  epoch  of  di- 
vine right  monarchs  and  professional 
soldiers.  It  is  true  that  expansion  is 
more  legitimate  when,  as  now,  it  pro- 
ceeds largely  from  economic  and  racial 
causes.  Yet  on  the  whole  the  combina- 
tion just  noted  is  unnatural  and  must 
be  fleeting.     At  bottom  an  army  made 

man  War;  the  extreme  is  found  in  the  period  imme- 
diately before  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war.  The 
reader  is  advised  to  turn  to  the  German  War  Min- 
istry confidential  circular  of  March,  1913,  printed  in 
the  French  Yellow  Book  of  November,  1914,  for  an 
interesting  light  on  the  propagandism  carried  on  in 
this  last  period.     An  extract  follows: 

"Our  new  army  law  is  but  an  extension  of  the  mili- 
tary education  of  the  German  people.  Our  ances- 
tors of  1813  made  greater  sacrifices.  It  is  our  sacred 
duty  to  sharpen  the  sword  which  has  been  placed  in 
our  hand,  and  to  hold  it  ready  for  our  defense  as 
well  as  to  strike  our  enemy.  The  idea  that  our  arma- 
ments are  a  reply  to  the  armaments  and  policy  of 
80 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

up  not  of  professional  soldiers  but  of 
ordinary  citizens,  framed  so  as  to  ex- 
pand in  time  of  war  and  to  dwindle  in 
time  of  peace,  represents  a  negative 
and  not  a  positive  military  policy. 
And  the  constantly  decreasing  power  of 
such  an  army  to  force  a  decision  through 
shock,  tends  in  the  same  direction. 
Some  of  these  considerations  apply  par- 
ticularly to  the  case  of  Switzerland. 

the  French  must  be  instilled  into  the  people.  The 
people  must  be  accustomed  to  think  that  an  offen- 
sive war  on  our  part  is  a  necessity  if  we  are  to  com- 
bat the  adversary's  provocations.  We  must  act  with 
prudence  in  order  to  arouse  no  suspicion,  and  so  as 
to  avoid  the  crises  which  might  damage  our  economic 
life.  Things  must  be  so  managed  that  under  the 
weighty  impression  of  powerful  armaments,  of  con- 
siderable sacrifices,  and  of  political  tension,  the  out- 
break of  war  (Losschlagen)  shall  be  considered  as 
a  deliverance,  because  after  it  would  come  decades 
of  peace  and  of  prosperity,  such  as  those  which  fol- 
lowed 1870.  The  war  must  be  prepared  for  from  a 
financial  point  of  view.  There  is  much  to  be  done  in 
this  direction.  The  distrust  of  our  financiers  must 
not  be  aroused,  but  nevertheless  there  are  many 
things  which  it  will  be  impossible  to  hide." 

81 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

This  little  republic,  the  center  of 
Europe,  has  for  some  years  possessed 
the  perfect  model  of  a  national  army. 
The  policy  of  the  nation  was  easy  to 
frame  in  relation  with  its  surroundings. 
North,  south,  east  and  west  lay  neigh- 
bors so  powerful  as  to  preclude  any 
territorial  ambition.  On  the  other 
hand,  these  neighbors  presented  a 
threat  along  every  mile  of  frontier. 
So  the  Swiss  decided  on  a  policy  of  na- 
tional defense.  And  defense  to  be 
bearable,  with  a  small  people  and  rela- 
tively poor  country,  had  to  be  inexpen- 
sive; while  on  the  other  hand  to  stand 
any  chance  of  success  it  had  to  place 
large  masses  in  the  field. 

To  carry  out  this  policy  Switzerland 
gives  preliminary  military  instruction 
in  her  schools,  and  at  twenty  years  of 
age    calls    on    every    man,    mentally. 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

physically,  and  morally  fit,  to  train  for 
sixty  days.  .  (Ninety  days  in  the  artil- 
lery and  other  special  services.) 
Thereafter  he  trains  eleven  days  a  year 
until  he  reaches  the  age  of  thirty-two, 
when  he  is  turned  over  to  the  reserve 
which  holds  him  till  he  is  forty-eight. 

The  framework  for  this  militia  army, 
armament,  equipment,  officers'  corps, 
technical  services,  munitions  of  war, 
are  maintained  in  a  highly  organized 
state  so  that  mobilization  of  the  Swiss 
army  can  be  effected  within  a  few  days 
of  the  call  to  arms.  On  first  assem- 
bling it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the 
Swiss  infantry  would  equal  the  quality 
of  the  German  or  French.  But  a  very 
few  weeks'  experience  in  the  field, 
added  to  their  early  training  with  the 
rifle,  would  probably  turn  these  hardy 
and    liberty-loving    mountaineers,    of 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

splendid  fighting  qualities  and  tradi- 
tion, into  an  army  formidable  enough 
under  modern  standards  to  put  up  a 
strong  resistance  in  defensive  positions. 
The  authorities  give  varying  num- 
bers for  the  Swiss  army.  Their  first 
line  is  placed  at  from  150,000  to  250,- 
000  men.  The  reserve  may  be  reck- 
oned at  almost  as  many  more.  An 
army  such  as  that,  concentrated  on  a 
front  near  the  line  Bienne-Zurich 
would  prove  more  than  an  embarrass- 
ment to  any  French  or  German  army 
that  should  venture  to  cross  lots 
through  Bale  and  the  northwestern  cor- 
ner of  Switzerland.  It  is  the  virtual 
guarantee  of  the  independence  of  a 
brave  people,  who  have  too  much  sense 
to  put  their  faith  in  international  guar- 
antees of  neutrality,  and  enough  spirit 
to  be  willing  to  face  the  military  issue 
84 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

instead  of  feebly  evading  it.  With 
Belgium,  we  come  to  the  opposite  case. 
Belgium  had  twice  the  population  of 
Switzerland,  almost  one-eighth  of  the 
population  of  Germany,  and  a  com- 
merce that  ranked  higher  than  that  of 
great  powers  like  Italy,  Austria-Hun- 
gary, or  Russia.  She  had  other  ad- 
vantages in  the  compactness  of  her  pop- 
ulation, her  developed  railroad  system, 
her  supplies  of  coal  and  iron,  her  open 
sea  frontier.  She  possessed,  in  addi- 
tion, a  narrow  front  of  some  military 
value  facing  Germany,  the  line  of  the 
Meuse  between  Liege  and  Givet.  In 
other  words,  her  situation  as  compared 
with  Switzerland  was  immensely  more 
favorable  for  organizing  a  national  de- 
fense. Even  as  compared  with  Ger- 
many single  handed,  with  her  popu- 
lation compactly  placed,  on  a  narrow 
86 


ARM^  AND  THE  RACE 

front,  and  with  great  economic  re- 
sources, it  was  not  quite  hopeless  to  at- 
tempt to  resist  her  neighbor;  the  Swiss, 
we  may  guess,  would  certainly  have 
made  the  attempt.  But  that  was  not 
the  practical  problem. 

The  practical  problem  was  merely 
how  to  defend  Belgian  neutrality  in 
case  of  war  between  other  Powers.  It 
was  true  that  the  neutrality  of  Belgium, 
like  that  of  Switzerland,  was  under  the 
guarantee  of  treaties.  But  the  observ- 
ance of  such  treaties  was  not  in  the 
traditions  of  European  diplomacy.  A 
great  power  dealing  with  a  little  one 
was  far  more  likely  to  consult  expedi- 
ency than  international  ethics,  as  even 
the  United  States  had  recently  shown 
in  the  case  of  Panama.  Beyond  all 
that  was  the  definite  knowledge,  tabu- 
lated on  the  cards  of  every  general  staff 
86 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

of  Europe,  that  the  railroads  recently- 
developed  by  Germany  towards  the 
Belgian  frontier  were  intended  for  the 
conveyance  of  troops,  the  designation 
and  placing  of  which  could  almost 
wholly  be  worked  out.  German  pub- 
licists and  writers  on  military  affairs 
did  not  hesitate  to  inform  the  world 
that  to  carry  out  against  France  the 
envelopment  on  a  wide  strategic  front 
of  the  von  Moltke-von  der  Goltz  school 
a  swinging  movement  through  Belgium 
was  necessary.  It  was  also  clear  that 
the  narrow  frontier  in  Lorraine  was 
wholly  inadequate  for  deploying  such 
masses  as  Germany  possessed.  The 
economic  desirability  of  seizing  the  coal 
and  iron  resources  of  Belgium  and 
northern  France  was  probably  not  yet 
realized  to  be  a  fundamental  necessity 
for  Germany's  strategic  policy.  But 
87 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

even  if  this  last  point  was  not  generally 
grasped,  it  still  remains  true  to  say  that 
no  nation  ever  received  more  definite 
warning  that  her  hour  was  at  hand  than 
Belgium. 

How  did  she  meet  it?  Her  attitude 
was  most  characteristic,  and  had  many 
points  of  resemblance  with  that  of  this 
country  towards  the  military  problem. 
She  was  engrossed  in  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  outbursts  of  industrial 
energy  that  the  world  has  seen.  Labor 
problems  and  social  reforms  had  be- 
come urgent.  She  concentrated  her  at- 
tention on  herself.  Beyond  her  border 
there  was  nothing  to  interest  her,  for 
her  ambitions  did  not  lie  that  way.  She 
was  impatient,  one  is  almost  tempted  to 
say  naturally  impatient,  at  any  thought 
of  spending  money  and  foresight  on 
anything  so  irreconcilable  with  her 
88 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

ideals  as  an  army.  And  the  upshot 
was  a  haphazard,  neglectful,  ineffective 
treatment  of  the  problem.  Then  she 
woke  up  one  fine  morning  to  find  her 
country  wrecked  and  in  ashes. 

The  Belgian  army,  costing  rather 
more  than  half  again  as  much  as  the 
Swiss,  roughly  thirteen  millions  of  dol- 
lars to  eight,  was  much  less  efficient. 
It  stood  on  paper  at  about  48,000  men, 
though  this  number  was  not  actually 
reached,  and  the  efficiency  of  its  infan- 
try was  ranked  low.  A  few  show  regi- 
ments of  the  royal  guard,  and  the  scien- 
tific attainments  of  the  technical  corps 
were  good;  the  rest  almost  negligible. 
There  was  a  reserve  of  about  the  same 
numbers,  and  a  garde  civique  of  no 
military  value.  Had  Belgium  been 
equipped  with  a  system  half  as  effective 
as  the  Swiss,  she  could  have  matched 
89 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

man  for  man  with  Germany  on  the 
Liege-Givet  hne,  and  quicker,  up  to 
half  a  million  of  men  or  more.  As  it 
was  her  small  forces  proved  useless — 
notwithstanding  the  exaggerated  views 
so  widely  disseminated  as  to  what  took 
place  at  Liege  and  afterwards. 

With  every  country  of  Europe  we 
have  to  deal  with  a  similar  range  of 
facts:  national  policy  and  the  armed 
force.  And  in  no  two  countries  do  we 
find  the  same  policy  or  the  same  expres- 
sion of  it  in  terms  of  arms.  Some  na- 
tions are  wise,  others  foolish;  some  are 
strong,  others  weak;  some  aggressive, 
some  pacific;  some  wasteful,  others 
provident.  But  summing  up  and  look- 
ing to  the  future  it  may  be  said  that  un- 
less European  civilization  is  doomed  to 
suffer  some  considerable  setback,  Swit- 
zerland has  evolved  the  logical  form  of 
90 


MILITARY  POLICIES 

the  national  army,  and  placed  as  she  is, 
she  has  been  compelled  to  carry  that 
form  out  to  its  largest  numerical  terms. 
Germany  made  of  the  national  army 
first  a  weapon  for  achieving  national 
unity,  a  comprehensible  ambition,  and 
later  a  weapon  for  the  assertion  of  cer- 
tain aims,  largely  the  result  of  great 
economic  expansion,  that  involved  the 
coercion  of  her  neighbors.  But  this, 
let  us  hope,  is  only  a  passing  phase, 
and  even  the  German  national  army 
may  prove  a  stepping  stone  to  more 
pacific  times  and  methods.^ 

In  the  United  States  peculiar  condi- 
tions vary  the  shape  of  the  general  argu- 
ment. These  conditions  will  be  consid- 
ered   shortly.      But    before    reaching 

3  As  the  present  war  continues  so  do  its  economic 
factors  stand  out  more  plainly.  The  situation  may 
be  worse  than  is  here  indicated,  and  we  may  stand 
at  the  beginning  of  vast  struggles  for  economic  con- 
trol. 

91 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

them  it  may  already  be  pointed  out  that 
a  similar  reluctance  to  face  the  military 
problem  to  that  which  was  shown  by 
Belgiimi  is  manifest  in  th*e  United 
States.  Fortunately  the  words  Mene, 
Mene^  Tekel,  Upharsin^  have  not  yet 
appeared  on  our  walls,  and  the  actual 
problem  to  be  considered  is  far  slighter 
than  the  one  which  has  just  concluded 
in  the  catastrophe  of  Belgium.  Yet 
the  United  States  has  no  more  rational 
poKcy  than  Belgium  had,  and  has  never 
seriously  asked  the  question:  What 
are  the  possibilities  that  face  us,  and 
what  are  the  reasonable  precautions  to 
take  in  view  of  such  possibilities? 


92 


CHAPTER  V 

KRUPPISM   AND   DISARMAMENT 

A  WELL-KNOWN  college  presi- 
dent, an  acknowledged  authority 
on  fishes,  has  lately  taken  a  sudden 
plunge  into  history.  The  results  of  his 
investigations  lead  him  to  the  conclusion 
that  for  a  nation  to  arm  itself  is  to 
choose  the  worse  alternative  between 
"Hell  or  Utopia."  ^  This  may  repre- 
sent sound  reasoning  in  terms  of  ichthy- 
ological  classifications,  though  it  has  a 
suspicious  smack  of  the  specialist  in 
headlines;  but  to  the  professional  his- 
torian, when  applied  to  the  policies  of 
nations,  it  sounds  decidedly  fishy.     Na- 

1  President  Jordan,  at  a  public  dinner,  New  York, 
Dec.  2,  1914. 

93 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

tions  that  frame  their  poKcies  on  the 
"Hell  or  Utopia"  alternative  are  more 
than  likely  to  get  into  trouble — either 
way!  The  real  interest  lies  in  seeing  a 
little  more  closely  what  are  the  fixed 
values  behind  certain  ways  of  thought 
and  action.  Militarism  and  Pacifism 
may  serve  as  convenient  labels  under 
which  to  group  them.  Let  us  consider 
them  in  their  mutual  reactions. 

Militarism  and  pacifism;  Kruppism 
and  disarmament;  Hell  and  Utopia; 
all  these  are  words  that  represent  some- 
thing. Yet  as  they  are  most  commonly 
used  they  are  nothing  more  than  for- 
mulas for  airing  prejudices  and  giving 
the  go-by  to  close  investigation  and  pre- 
cise thinking.  To  demolish  the  ex- 
treme doctrines  of  either  party  is  a  com- 
paratively easy  task;  what  is  less  easy 
is  to  set  down  the  pros  and  cons,  with 
94 


KRUPPISM 

their  significance,  so  as  to  arrive  at 
something  helpful. 

It  may  be  remarked  then  that  mili- 
tarism and  pacifism  are  equally  difficult 
of  definition.  A  really  advanced  pacif- 
ist believes  that  it  is  wicked  even  to 
speak  of  arms;  and  he  would  consider 
a  Swiss  deputy  advising  the  issue  of  a 
modern  field  gun  as  an  enemy  of  man- 
kind. We  need  not  stop  to  argue  the 
question  with  him.  For  an  equally 
earnest  but  moderate  pacifist  might 
highly  approve  of  the  same  Swiss  dep- 
uty, on  the  ground  that  he  was  merely 
advocating  a  measure  of  necessity  for 
maintaining  the  independence  of  his 
country.  It  is  between  these  two 
points,  which  are  so  far  apart,  that 
pacifism  oscillates.  Between  the  two 
lies  the  pacifist  predisposition. 

Now  the  pacifist  predisposition  un- 
95 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

doubtedly  proceeds  from  the  advance  of 
economic  civilization.  Man  appreci- 
ates more  and  more  the  luxuries  he 
creates,  and  therefore  tends  to  reject 
more  and  more  his  primitive  tendency 
towards  war,  with  its  attendant  hard- 
ship and  suffering. 

Economic  civilization  is  inevitably 
materialistic,  that  is,  both  grasping  and 
hedonistic.  Happiness  of  the  individual, 
of  the  greatest  number,  of  the  whole 
community,  becomes  all  absorbing. 

Yet  on  the  other  hand  economic 
ambitions  are  behind  the  greatest  war 
in  history;  while  often  enough  we  may 
note  that  war  is  the  greatest  spur 
through  which  economic  development 
has  been  reached.  The  most  strik- 
ing example  of  this  fact  dates  back 
about  three  hundred  years,  and  is 
worth  attention  if  we  are  to  see  these 
96 


KRUPPISM 

facts  in  anything  like  their  true  propor- 
tions. 

"If  a  date  must  be  picked  at  which  the 
current  of  international  politics  turned 
into  the  channel  with  which  we  are  now 
famiUar,  the  year  1600  will  answer  the 
purpose  well  enough.  •  .  .  Holland,  at 
the  very  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  rapidly  passed  through  phases 
that  illuminate  the  whole  current  of 
events  from  that  day  to  this.  Let  us 
glance  at  a  few  ancient  facts  and  mod- 
ern doctrines.  One  of  the  theories 
most  ardently  propagated  by  the  mil- 
lion-dollar endowments  is  that  war 
fatally  saps  the  nation's  vitality  be- 
cause it  destroys  the  most  valuable 
part  of  its  population.  The  fallacious 
assumptions  contained  in  this  doctrine 
are  j)lentiful,  but  it  will  suffice  for  our 
purpose  to  attack  it  at  one  point  only, 
97 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

and  with  Holland  as  the  example.  That 
country  sustained  one  of  the  most  deso- 
lating wars  recorded  in  modern  history, 
and  a  war  that  lasted,  with  scarcely  ah 
interruption,  for  no  less  than  forty 
years  (1568-1609).  Towards  the 
close  of  the  conflict  success,  coupled 
with  maritime  preponderance,  inclined 
to  the  Dutch  arms.  Hardly  had  it  ter- 
minated when  the  Dutch  people  dis- 
played such  extraordinary  energy  as 
perhaps  no  European  state  has  ever 
equaled.  Almost  immediately  they 
captured  the  carrying  trade  of  Europe 
and  developed  a  commercial  civilization 
that  was  the  wonder  and  envy  of  all 
their  neighbors.  Three  years  before 
the  truce  of  1609  it  was  already  reck- 
oned that  the  Dutch  had  three  ships  to 
the  English  one,  while  half  a  century 
later  Colbert  stated  that  there  were 
98 


KRUPPISM 

about  twenty  Dutch  ships  to  every 
French  one.  Their  cities  throve  as 
none  other  in  Europe.  Their  art  ri- 
valed that  of  Italy,  and  Spain,  and 
France.  With  Grotius,  they  founded 
systematic  international  law.  With 
Spinoza,  a  little  later,  they  founded  the 
philosophy  of  materialism.  And  all 
this  gigantic  work  was  accomplished  by 
a  little  nation  the  vitality  of  which,  ac- 
cording to  all  the  pseudo-historical 
theories  of  the  sciolists  of  pacifism, 
should  have  been  utterly  destroyed  by 
war. 

"What,  then,  is  the  truth  of  the  mat- 
ter? It  would  appear  to  be  this,  that 
the  energy  generated  by  war,  the  confi- 
dence engendered  by  success,  and  the 
adaptability  and  resourcefulness  taught 
by  military  enterprise,  far  offset  any 
debit  that  may  come  from  the  loss  of  a 
99 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

percentage  of  the  young  male  popula- 
tion. Successful  war,  even  of  such  pro- 
longed and  devastating  character  as  the 
Dutch  war  for  independence,  is  the  sure 
forerunner  of  a  vigorous  period  of  ex- 
pansion. For  modern  instances  of  the 
rule  we  need  seek  no  further  than  our 
own  Northern  States  after  the  Civil 
War,  or  Germany  after  the  war  of 
1870."  2 

Whatever  their  dangers,  materialism 
and  pacifism  find  man  in  his  most  devel- 
oped state.  However  much  we  may 
admire  the  primitive  virtues  of  courage 
and  generosity,  however  much  we  may 
despise  greed  and  the  fear  of  death  or 
even  pain,  we  are  bound  to  take  man's 
advance  in  terms  of  the  intellect.  It  is 
by  thinking  and  reasoning  that  we  have 

2  Johnston,  "Three  Hundred  Years  of  War."    In- 
fantry Journal,  November,  1914. 

100 


KRUPPISM 

advanced;  and  by  thinking  and  reason- 
ing we  have  reared  a  civiKzation  that 
makes  for  happiness  and  abhors  de- 
struction and  bloodshed.  Our  great 
problem  is  one  of  balance,  of  advancing 
wisely,  without  imprudence,  lest  we  slip 
back  into  the  primitive  brute,  or  on  the 
other  hand  lose  our  foothold  in  a  too- 
eager  search  for  happiness. 

A  moderate  or  temperate  pacifism 
would  thus  appear  to  be  the  wise  road 
for  a  nation  to  follow.  Switzerland 
may  be  said  to  conform  to  this  ideal. 
Spain,  with  her  small  army  and  navy, 
might  be  thought  of  in  the  same  cate- 
gory were  it  not  for  her  evident  lack  of 
vitality.  France  has  been  partly  pa- 
cific, partly  aggressive.  The  rebuild- 
ing of  her  army  after  the  disaster  of 
1870-71  was  a  reasonable  act  of  pru- 
dence, and  for  the  most  part  her  atti- 
101 


AEMS  AND  THE  RACE 

tude  towards  her  continental  neighbors 
has  been  all  that  it  should  be.  Yet  her 
African  policy  has  been  one  of  con- 
quest, and  at  times,  under  some  provo- 
cation, she  has  assumed  an  aggressive 
attitude  as  to  Alsace-Lorraine.  Eng- 
land, long  an  active  military  power  in 
terms  of  colonial  empire,  closed  an 
epoch  with  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  She  no  longer  aims  at  con- 
quest. And  the  withdrawal  of  her 
ships  of  the  line  from  the  Pacific  marked 
her  abandonment  of  world-wide  mari- 
time supremacy.  Within  her  own 
waters,  and  along  the  shores  that  face 
her  she  still  pursues,  perhaps  inevitably, 
a  policy  of  naval  supremacy.  This 
poUcy  reposes  on  the  fast  increasing 
vulnerability  of  her  sea-borne  commerce 
and  food  supply. 

There  are  two  topics  of  special  inter- 
ior 


KRUPPISM 

est  constantly  brought  forward  in  pa- 
cifist debates:  disarmament  and  the 
* 'international  mind."  Each  is  worth 
some  discussion.  The  first  is  essen- 
tially a  practical  question;  the  second, 
an  intellectual  one. 

Disarmament  is  essentially  a  practi- 
cal question.  We  may  accept  as  a 
basis  of  argument  that  it  is  wholly  de- 
sirable that  the  great  Powers  should 
agree  to  a  permanent  peace.  On  this 
basis  what  are  the  difficulties  of  the 
question,  its  probabilities,  our  possible 
means  of  action?  There  can  be  no 
doubt,  when  we  view  the  condition  of 
the  great  European  powers  and  Japan, 
and  when  we  consider  the  reaction  of 
public  sentiment  that  will  occur  at  the 
close  of  the  present  war,  that  disarma- 
ment is  urgent.  Are  the  difficulties  in 
its  way  superable? 

103 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

One  of  the  gravest  obstacles  lies  in 
the  fact  that  no  two  nations  are  situ- 
ated in  the  same  way.  Will  Germany 
disarm?  This  means  the  surrender  of 
her  ambitions  to  expand  over  the  less 
well  occupied  regions  of  the  world.  It 
means  the  arousing  of  a  fear  that  the 
hostile  or  alien  elements  within  the  em- 
pire, the  Danes,  the  Poles,  the  people 
of  Alsace-Lorraine,  even  the  Bavarians 
or  Saxons,  might  then  attempt  to  assert 
local  sovereignty.  It  means  fear  that 
the  superior  numbers  of  Russia,  which 
could  not  be  wholly  disarmed,  might 
prevail  against  her. 

It  has  just  been  said  that  Russia 
could  not  wholly  disarm.  Her  Cos- 
sacks are  the  finest  raw  cavalry  in  the 
world,  though  almost  useless  in  organ- 
ized armies  for  lack  of  training.  But  if 
organized  armies  were  suppressed  they 
104 


KRUPPISM 

might  then  easily  prove  the  decisive 
force. 

For  even  if  these  primitive  tribes- 
men could  be  made  to  surrender  car- 
bine and  sword  and  ammunition,  even 
if  the  manufacture  of  arms  were  de- 
clared illegal,  it  is  obviously  they  who 
could  most  rapidly  beat  out  from 
the  plowshare  the  spear  head  or  the 
sword ;  and  the  days  of  Attila  might  be 
on  us  again. 

In  the  case  of  England  the  difficulty 
is  even  greater.  The  English  army 
has  long  been  maintained  for  colonial 
and  not  for  European  purposes. 
Would  she  be  required  to  put  it  down 
on  a  European  disarmament;  or  might 
she  retain  it?  To  put  it  down  would 
open  the  Khyber  pass  and  create  a  new 
Mogul  empire.  Will  Afghanistan  be 
required  to  disarm,  and  will  Arabia, 
105 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

and,  if  so,  who  will  enforce  the  decree, 
and  how? 

The  practical  difficulties  grow  the 
more  we  study  the  details.  And  we 
need  not  even  state  the  further  compli- 
cations that  the  parallel  question  of 
naval  disarmament  introduces.  With 
that  also  no  two  coimtries,  no  two  geo- 
graphical areas,  present  the  same  con- 
ditions. England  is  situated  thus  and 
Austria  so.  The  North  Sea  may  favor 
a  flotilla  defensive,  the  Atlantic  a  super- 
dreadnought  offensive,  and  so  on  in- 
definitely. Yet  there  are  broad  lines 
that  may  be  stated  tentatively,  even  if 
they  lead  to  somewhat  negative  conclu- 
sions. 

As  a  general  proposition  it  is  clear 
that  with  the  western  European  nations 
the  development  of  national  armies  co- 
incides closely  with  that  of  economic 
106 


KRUPPISM 

resources.  Warfare  has  become  so  ex- 
tensive in  scope  and  in  technical  com- 
plication as  to  have  become  an  intoler- 
able burden  on  the  comparatively  small 
areas  that  support  it  in  this  extreme 
form.  The  question  of  the  size  of  na- 
tions will  be  noticed  in  the  next  chapter ; 
for  the  present  it  is  sufficient  to  observe 
that  the  further  east  one  proceeds  the 
less  is  the  burden  felt,  so  that  the  dis- 
armament of  the  western  nations  could 
only  result  in  the  rise  of  the  Powers  ly- 
ing east  of  them. 

It  would  seem  therefore  that  all  that 
is  practical,  all  that  is  desirable,  is  the 
carrying  forward  of  the  tendency  to 
disarm,  without  expecting  too  much  or 
pressing  forward  too  ardently.  Militia 
armies  of  the  Swiss  type  are  clearly 
possibilities  for  England  or  France 
within  the  next  few  years.  Such 
107 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

armies  would  be  too  weak  for  offense  to 
be  a  real  menace  to  peace,  but,  if  effi- 
cient, strong  enough  for  defense,  for 
safeguarding  independence  and  inter- 
ests. 

Swiss  model  armies,  however,  even 
though  they  are  a  probable  phase  of  the 
near  future  for  western  Europe,  could 
not  satisfy  the  conditions  of  an  interna- 
tional police  for  the  maintenance  of 
world  peace.  Such  a  police  force  would 
mean  of  necessity  small  and  scattered 
numbers,  but  high  efficiency;  in  other 
words,  the  professional  army  over  again, 
though  on  a  new  basis.  It  is  difficult  to 
beheve  at  the  present  time  that  we  are 
within  sight  of  a  moment  when  the 
European  powers  could  effect  the  tre- 
mendous and  dangerous  change  from 
the  basis  of  numbers  to  that  of  quality ; 
yet  below  the  surface  causes  are  work- 
I  108 


KRUPPISM 

ing  in  that  direction  that  are  quite  likely 
to  show  up  before  many  more  years 
have  passed. 

Professional  armies  would  afford  the 
best  basis  for  a  world  pohce,  if  for  no 
better  reason  than  that  international 
cooperation  would  become  more  neces- 
sary between  Powers  each  of  which  had 
only  a  small  army,  A  professional 
force,  small  but  adequate  in  size,  is  fur- 
ther a  more  valuable  element  of  stability 
within  a  State  than  a  national  army 
watered  down  to  the  Swiss  militia 
standard.  For  every  country,  particu- 
larly with  the  growth  of  industrialism 
and  cities,  has  to  face  recurrent  periods 
of  disorder  in  which  the  local  police 
forces  may  prove  inadequate  and  re- 
quire stiffening.  In  the  history  of  the 
United  States,  presently  to  be  dealt 
with,  there  is  one  extraordinary  illustra- 
109 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

tion  of  the  far-reaching  results  that  de- 
pend on  just  such  an  adjustment. 
Again,  turning  to  the  problem  pre- 
sented by  the  eastern  people  lying 
roughly  in  the  great  triangle  Belgrade, 
Kabul,  Magdala,  it  is  clear  that  small 
highly  efficient  forces  can  accomplish 
more  in  the  way  of  pacification  than  na- 
tional militias. 

Another  general  idea  that  we  hear 
much  debated  is  that  of  the  interna- 
tional mind.  It  is  evident  that  we  have 
here  a  question  that  does  not  bear  in  any 
immediate  sense  on  the  question  of  arm- 
ament. If  internationalism  is  an  in- 
evitable tendency,  it  clearly  favors  dis- 
armament in  the  long  run.  The  super- 
ficial adjustments  of  human  life,  and 
the  standardization  of  materiaUstic  hap- 
piness, make  for  some  such  unification 
as  is  here  in  question.  It  is  conceivable 
110 


KRUPPISM 

that  in  due  process  of  years  the  China- 
man, Zulu,  and  North  American  will 
set  approximately  equal  values  on 
plumbing  and  moving  pictures,  on  wire- 
less telephones  and  inexpensive  shock 
absorbers.  But  even  if  they  should, 
could  that  negative  racial  antagonism? 
You  may  get  the  whole  world  thinking 
alike  on  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  the 
questions  which  the  ordinary  citizen 
ever  does  think  about.  But  the  one  per 
cent,  left  unaccounted  for  may  possibly 
wreck  the  whole  edifice  founded  on  the 
rest. 

A  few  will  go  even  further  than  mere 
scepticism  as  to  the  utility  of  the  "inter- 
national mind."  Unification  or  simpli- 
fication is  a  pseudo-philosophical  con- 
cept based  on  a  misunderstanding  of 
the  laws  of  race  and  the  laws  of  intellect. 
Advance  goes  with  complexity  and 
111 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

the  greater  opportunity  for  selection. 
Commercial  intercourse  may  require  a 
simplification  of  language,  but  intellec- 
tual progress  demands  more  and 
greater  complication.  The  substitu- 
tion of  a  single  language  for  the  variety 
of  tongues  now  possessed  by  man, 
would  within  the  space  of  a  gen- 
eration prove  a  disaster  for  the  power 
of  expression  and  the  power  of  thought 
of  the  race. 

Turning  from  these  remote  possibili- 
ties, we  shall  find  something  more  tan- 
gible in  the  state  of  affairs  we  may 
designate  as  Kruppism.  One  of  the 
least  edifying  features  of  the  competi- 
tion for  armaments  has  been  the  growth 
of  huge  industrial  enterprises  earning 
millions  out  of  the  development  of  en- 
gines for  taking  human  life.  To  this 
must  be  added  the  employment  of 
112 


KRUPPISM 

methods,  often  savoring  of  corruption, 
for  obtaining  favorable  contracts.  It 
should  be  said,  however,  that  such 
methods  are  not  peculiar  to  firms  en- 
gaged in  such  industries.  It  might  be 
possible  to  get  an  international  agree- 
ment prohibiting  the  manufacture  of 
arms  and  war  material  by  private  firms, 
together  with  commerce  in  such  articles 
from  one  country  to  another.  Even 
Russia  might  be  persuaded  into  such  an 
agreement;  and  it  would  amount  to  a 
step  in  restraint  of  war.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  will  doubtless  be  argued  that 
private  competition  stimulates  inven- 
tion and  improvement. 

To  close  the  chapter,  we  might  glance 
at  another  formula  of  the  extreme 
pacifists.  It  may  fairly  be  stated  as 
follows:  That  armaments  create  war 
and  that  any  risk  is  wiser  than  to  in- 
113 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

crease  armaments.  This  formula  is 
compounded  in  about  equal  parts  of 
truth  and  untruth.  It  is  true  that  the 
race  of  armaments  may  under  favoring 
circumstances  bring  about  the  very  re- 
sult which  its  advocates  claim  to  pre- 
vent. Without  any  doubt  the  great 
war  of  1914  was  in  part  caused  by  the 
mere  existence  of  an  immense  war  ma- 
chine. That  machine  had  long  been 
the  dominant  force  of  European  poli- 
tics, it  had  long  been  perfected  and 
strengthened  into  one  of  the  wonders 
of  Western  civihzation.  But  no  one 
had  seen  it  at  work,  though  all  that  was 
needed  to  set  it  going  was  the  pressing 
of  a  button.  Inevitably  that  button 
had  to  be  pressed  some  day. 

Few  would  care  to  deny  this,  yet  it 
does  not  justify  the  conclusion  of  the 
pacifist  formula.     That  thing  has  hap- 
114 


KRUPPISM 

pened  with  a  given  country;  under  given 
conditions.  We  may  even  push  further 
and  say :  the  thing  tends  to  result  from 
increasing  armaments.  But  is  that 
tendency  of  necessity  a  strong  one?  Is 
it  not,  on  the  contrary,  in  nearly  every 
case  we  know,  a  slight  one?  And  is 
not,  in  reality,  the  practical  problem, 
one  of  balancing  the  pros  and  the  cons? 
Let  us  glance  at  the  present  cases  of 
France,  England,  and  the  United 
States. 

France  has  been  one  of  the  great  com- 
petitors in  the  struggle  of  armaments. 
Within  recent  years  there  was  a  mo- 
ment, after  the  introduction  of  the  75 
millimeter  quick-firing  gun,  when  she 
led  handsomely  in  the  race.  Yet  this 
did  not  result  in  any  appreciable  depar- 
ture from  the  restrained  attitude  to- 
wards her  continental  neighbors  that  she 
115 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

had  till  then  maintained.  The  English 
fleet,  with  some  ups  and  downs  in  effi- 
ciency, has  generally  held  a  command- 
ing superiority  during  the  same  period. 
And  there  is  practically  nothing  we  may 
rightly  call  aggression  in  England's  at- 
titude, save  in  what  relates  to  her  deter- 
mination to  fight  rather  than  permit 
Germany  to  establish  a  naval  base  in 
the  middle  Atlantic.  This  determina- 
tion was  not  directly  the  outcome  of 
naval  superiority,  but  of  a  different  set 
of  reasons. 

The  case  of  the  United  States  within 
the  sphere  of  American  politics  is  very 
similar.  Following  the  Spanish  war 
we  began  to  expand  our  navy  until  in  a 
few  years,  almost  suddenly,  it  became 
one  of  the  great  navies  of  the  world. 
Within  the  political  theater  of  the  West 
Indies  and  South  America  it  was  far 
116 


KRUPPISM 

more  preponderant  than  the  German 
war  machine  was  in  Europe.  Did  we 
become  mihtarists  in  consequence? 
Have  we  abused  our  force  in  Mexico? 
Is  there  any  unwise  and  inflammable 
tendency  among  our  people  so  to  abuse 
it?  Those  who  argue  that  an  increase 
in  the  size  of  the  American  army  would 
turn  the  American  people  into  mili- 
tarists, pay  a  pretty  poor  compliment  to 
the  common  sense  and  the  rooted  good 
qualities  of  our  people. 

These  questions  of  militarism  or  pa- 
cifism; of  Kruppism  or  disarmament; 
of  Hell  or  Utopia,  are  of  vast  interest 
and  importance.  They  are  infinitely 
arguable.  But  the  man  who  will  serve 
his  country  best  will  have  the  patience 
to  study  each  particular  problem  as  a 
definite  case  and  the  more  he  studies 
such  problems  the  less  he  will  be  likely 
117 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

to  solve  them  with  a  long  word,  he 
more  he  will  be  likely  to  find  himself 
forced  in  the  direction  of  practical, 
makeshift  measures,  which  no  eloquent 
formulas  are  likely  to  fit,  but  that  may 
yet  be  of  infinite  value  to  his  country. 


118 


CHAPTER  VI 

EUROPE — ASIA — AMERICA 

AND  now,  the  map.  One  of  the 
greatest  facts  behind  the  conflict 
now  proceeding,  is  the  world's  shrink- 
age. Communication,  the  interrelation 
of  nations,  the  circulation  of  the  human 
corpuscles  within  the  world's  body,  are 
all  immensely  increased,  intensified. 
And  the  great  war  in  Europe  is,  among 
other  things  a  result  of  overcrowding, 
of  friction,  a  struggle  for  size. 

Had  the  Germans  reached  Paris,  and 
the  French  continued  to  fight  from  be- 
hind the  Loire,  nobody  could  have 
missed  the  point.  France  with  some 
forty  millions  of  people  is  oppressed  by 
119 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

the  weight  of  Germany,  which  has  about 
sixty-five  millions.  To  these  sixty-five 
millions  add  the  Germans  within  the 
Austrian  Empire  together  with  the 
Slav  populations  over  which  the  Ger- 
mans are  extending  political  and  eco- 
nomic suzerainty,  and  the  weight  be- 
comes well-nigh  overpowering. 

But  the  Germans  themselves  are  in 
turn  overweighted.  Beyond  them  lie 
one  hundred  and  sixty  millions  of  Rus- 
sians, and  a  sparsely  populated  country 
of  almost  boundless  agricultural  and 
industrial  possibilities.  Just  as  the 
French  feel  the  weight  of  the  Germans, 
so  do  the  Germans  feel  the  weight  of 
the  Russians.  And  these  relations  of 
weight  and  bulk,  so  to  speak,  are  becom- 
ing every  day  more  appreciable  owing 
to  increasing  facility  of  communication. 

Turn  the  question  another  way  about. 
120 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

Until  half  a  century  ago  Europe  re- 
mains large  enough  for  practical  pur- 
poses. Then  comes  the  consolidation 
of  the  Italian  people,  who  are  followed 
by  the  Germans,  and  at  the  same  mo- 
ment occurs  a  great  extension,  through 
railroad  construction,  of  means  for  cir- 
culating. Before  then  the  mountain- 
ous regions  of  central  Europe,  with  no 
large  national  grouping,  together  with 
imperfect  and  difficult  roads,  had  held 
Europe  sufficiently  dispersed.  Eco- 
nomic development,  and  more  pacific 
conditions  have  rapidly  brought  fast 
growing  nations  closer  together.  And 
in  most  of  western  Europe  the  popula- 
tion by  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  was  outrunning  its  agricultural 
resources.  Food  supply  was  ceasing  to 
be  local  and  becoming  international. 
A  few  great  areas  of  wheat  were  emerg- 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

ing  as  the  central  food  supply  of  many 
nations. 

In  a  way,  Europe  itself  was  out- 
grown. Draw  a  line  from  Konigsberg 
on  the  Baltic  to  Odessa  on  the  Black 
Sea.  West  of  that  lies  a  stretch  of 
country,  highly  favored  by  climate  and 
water  communication.  But  it  is  now 
rapidly  feeling  its  relatively  small  size. 
It  would  hold  comfortably  between  Key 
West  and  Chicago,  the  Aroostook  and 
Mobile.  Yet  within  it  are  crammed 
half  a  dozen  civilizations,  a  dozen  lan- 
guages, and  well-nigh  twenty  armies, 
three  quarters  of  which  are  in  a  high 
state  of  efficiency.  The  hostile  lines  of 
competing  tariff  systems  are  just  as  nu- 
merous; while  a  multiplicity  of  tradi- 
tions, in  which  war  and  religion  play  a 
great  part,  are  hopelessly  rooted  in  a 
past  that  is  not  altogether  edifying. 
122 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

Imagine  all  this  in  between  Chicago 
and  New  York,  and  how  unhappy  we 
should  be! 

Partly  as  a  result  of  this,  Europe  is 
now  pouring  a  population  in  ever-in- 
creasing numbers  across  the  Atlantic 
which  is  eager  for  more  space  and  op- 
portunity. Even  the  governments  feel 
the  pinch.  France  creates  an  African 
empire.  England  develops  great  colo- 
nial areas.  Italy  attempts  to  flow  back 
around  the  eastern  Mediterranean  as 
Rome  did  before  her.  Little  Belgium 
tucks  central  Africa  into  a  pocket  of 
which  the  lining  has  now  been  destroyed. 
Germany  alone  failed,  or  at  most  picked 
up  a  few  leavings  when  it  was  too  late. 
But  all  this  merely  eased  what  is  at  bot- 
tom a  hopeless  situation.  For  Europe 
cannot  stand  the  pressure  of  expansion 
much  longer  if  it  continues  on  the 
1^ 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

same  lines  as  during  the  last  fifty  years. 

In  any  case,  Russia  overbalances 
Europe.  The  Germans  are  largely 
justified  in  their  fear  of  Russia.  Not 
justified  in  terms  of  civilization  per- 
haps, for  there  is  as  yet  no  ground  for 
supposing  that  Russia  is  incapable  of 
equaling  such  cultural  developments  as 
those  Germany  incessantly  advertises; 
but  justified  in  terms  of  size,  in  terms  of 
self-assertion,  of  independence.  Take 
the  mere  matter  of  bulk.  From  the 
Prusso-Russian  frontier  near  Warsaw, 
it  is  just  over  a  thousand  miles  to  the 
extreme  western  point  of  France,  but 
eastward  to  Vladivostock  on  the  Pacific 
is  four  or  five  times  that  distance,  and 
all  under  the  Tzar's  flag. 

Clearly  the  bulk  of  Russia,  now  that 
railroads  are  so  rapidly  killing  distance, 
overtopples  that  of  western  Europe. 
124 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

A  grown-up  Russia,  half  Europe  and 
half  Asia,  will  make  the  terms  Europe 
and  Asia  obsolete.  And  in  the  war 
now  being  waged  the  Slavs  are  only 
just  beginning  to  display  the  huge  mili- 
tary power  which  the  future  holds  in 
store  for  them.  While  France  and 
Switzerland  and  Germany  can  place  in 
the  field  perhaps  one  male  in  every  five, 
Russia  is  as  yet  too  poor  and  too  un- 
educated to  place  even  as  many  as  one 
in  twenty.^  France  is  at  the  end  of  her 
tether  in  terms  of  conscript  armies; 
German j^  cannot  make  very  large  gains ; 
but  Russia  is  only  just  beginning.  A 
success  in  the  present  war  may  merely 
whet  her  appetite;  a  failure  will  leave 
her  more  determined  than  in  the  past  to 
develop  her  resources  further. 

1  On  paper  Russia  disposes  of  from  four  to  eight 
millions  of  soldiers.  But  her  past  record  in  such  mat- 
ters leaves  one  rather  skeptical. 

125 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

Incidentally  to  these  struggles  the 
question  of  customs  unions  arises.  In 
an  attempt  to  gain  size,  in  the  case  of 
nations,  we  may  expect  after  the  war  to 
see  efforts  made  at  larger  customs  zones 
in  Europe.  Prussia  has  already  tested 
the  efficacy  of  such  means  for  political 
enlargement.  And  it  may  also  be 
pointed  out  that  no  adjustment  is  more 
conducive  to  peace  than  a  destruction  of 
the  customs  barriers  between  countries. 
If  a  few  of  our  extreme  pacifists  would 
go  out  of  oratorj^  and  go  into  negotia- 
tions for  demolishing  tariff  walls,  they 
would  accomplish  a  great  deal  more 
than  they  do  for  the  peace  of  the  world. 

The  old  distinction  between  Europe 
and  Asia  is  fast  becoming  less  clear. 
In  the  North,  Russia  nearly  spans  the 
two  continents.  In  the  South,  the 
transitions  from  Vienna  through  Con- 
1«6 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

stantinople  to  Delhi,  and  thence  to 
Tokio,  are  not  to  be  thought  of  merely 
in  terms  European  or  Asiatic.  Eco- 
nomic resources  and  organization,  mili- 
tary power,  are  in  many  ways  more  im- 
portant touchstones. 

In  undeveloped  economic  resources, 
in  martial  spirit,  in  religious  zeal  and 
cohesiveness,  the  Mohammedan  world 
presents  a  problem  for  the  near  future. 
If  the  Khalifate  of  the  Ottoman  Turks 
at  Constantinople  is  now  doomed,  as 
many  believe,  a  new  Khalifate  will  in- 
evitably come  into  existence.  The 
question  is  where?  And  the  most  prob- 
able points  are  Mecca,  Bagdad,  Cairo, 
or  Kabul.  No  one  can  as  yet  proph- 
esy the  course  of  events  within  the  Mo- 
hammedan world;  at  the  most  a  few 
factors  and  tendencies  may  be  pieced 
together,  fop  what  they  are  worth. 
127 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

First,  then,  is  the  fact  already  pointed 
out,  that  a  new  Khahf  ate  will  probably 
soon  arise.  To  this  we  may  add  that 
the  same  tendency  as  in  Europe  towards 
shrinkage  is  proceeding  in  Asia  and 
Africa,  though  at  a  slower  pace.  Yet 
Pan-Mohammedanism,  which  is  partly 
a  product  of  this  shrinkage,  is  distinctly 
in  sight;  and  a  new  Khalifate  will  al- 
most inevitably  tend  towards  a  greater 
empire  that  might  eventually  stretch 
from  the  heart  of  Africa  to  the  heart  of 
Asia.  Even  if  this  consummation  lies 
beyond  the  view  of  our  own  generation, 
a  nearer  step  may  not  be  so  very  long 
deferred.  The  Afghan  princes  may 
quite  conceivably  regain  their  lost  foot- 
hold in  India  and  plant  the  crescent  once 
more  on  the  towers  of  Delhi.^ 

2  I  omit  a  discussion  of  the  Senoussi  movement,  as 
not  really  material  to  the  general  argimient. 

128 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

Should  Mohammedanism  in  any 
form  create  a  new  empire  in  southwest- 
ern Asia,  then  once  more  let  us  turn  to 
the  map.  Asia  would  then  have  most 
of  her  immense  territory  divided  into 
three  great  masses:  Russia,  China, 
and  the  Mohammedan  lands,  with  the 
southeast  parcelled  out  on  a  smaller 
scale.  And  each  of  those  three  great 
divisions  would  in  turn  contain  easily, 
almost  twice  over,  all  the  European 
States  lying  west  of  Russia.  In  terms 
of  bulk,  in  terms  of  modern  methods  of 
communication,  Europe  compared  to 
Asia  would  be  very  much  as  Belgium 
was  to  Germany  before  recent  events. 
And  let  us  add  that  seventy-five  years 
ago  communication  was  much  more  dif- 
ficult in  Europe  than  it  has  now  become 
in  Asia. 

But  neither  India  nor  Japan  has  yet 
129 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

been  mentioned.  It  is  difficult  to  be- 
lieve that  a  people  so  intelligent  and  so 
proud  as  the  Japanese  have  not  esti- 
mated a  tendency  from  which  they  are 
almost  certain  to  suffer  eventually.  At 
the  present  day  they  have  attained  a 
momentary  supremacy  in  Asia.  They 
have  imposed  their  will  on  China  and 
Russia.  Their  alliance  with  England 
when  first  entered  into  was  one  whereby 
the  dominant  Pacific  power  gave  them 
an  aid  which  was  indispensable.  But 
the  present  crisis  has  reversed  the  roles 
of  the  two  allies.  Great  Britain  first 
drew  her  fleet  in  to  the  North  Sea,  and 
has  now  drawn  her  army  towards  the 
same  point,  so  that  in  fact  she  is  leaning 
on  her  alliance  with  Japan  for  securing 
the  stability  of  Asia.  For  ten  years 
Japan  leaned  on  the  support  of  Eng- 
land; now  it  is  England  leans  on  the 
130 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

support  of  Japan ;  that  is  a  considerable 
fact  in  the  history  of  Asia. 

Undoubtedly  the  Japanese  realize  all 
this,  and  perceive  the  precariousness  of 
England's  Asiatic  prestige  and  posi- 
tion. Yet  the  precariousness  of  their 
own  position  is  just  as  evident,  because 
the  future  belongs  to  the  great  countries 
and  they  are  small. 

The  question  is,  will  they  attempt  to 
seize  a  favorable  moment  and  to  gain 
expansion  while  there  is  yet  time? 
Their  pohcy,  past,  and  present,  points 
on  the  whole  to  this  conclusion.  Their 
successful  wars  of  the  last  twenty  years 
have  been  followed  by  enormous  an- 
nexations of  territory,  and  an  even 
greater  spread  of  economic  suzer- 
ainty. 

And  now,  though  heavily  burdened 
financially,  and  free  from  any  military 
131 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

menace,  they  have  decided  on  large  in- 
creases for  their  army  and  navy. 

Japan's  policy,  if,  as  seems  probable, 
it  is  to  take  an  aggressive  form,  may  lie 
along  one  of  several  lines.  China  for 
the  moment  holds  together  in  the  hands 
of  a  strong  and  politic  military  dic- 
tator. But  is  it  worth  more  than  his 
life?  Is  not  rupture  in  sight?  And 
may  not  Japan  eventually  succeed  in 
creating  a  great  continental  empire 
from  the  fragments?  If  this  is  not  her 
ambition,  or  if  she  finds  her  way  barred, 
then  she  may  turn  to  the  Pacific,  and  in 
the  Pacific,  it  is  the  colonies  of  Euro- 
pean powers,  and  our  two  great  pos- 
sessions, the  Philippines  and  Alaska, 
that  might  prove  the  most  tempting 
baits.^ 

3  Every  incident  since  these  lines  were  written  be- 
fore the  fall  of  Tsing  Tau  confirms  the  impression. 

132 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

For  the  moment,  however,  it  would 
seem  as  though  the  Japanese  statesmen 
were  wisely  bent  on  avoiding  quarrels 
with  Europe  and  America,  while  con- 
centrating their  efforts  on  the  political 
and  economic  penetration  of  China. 
This  course  may  be  less  dangerous  to 
us  than  the  other;  but  the  values  in- 
volved are  very  shifting;  the  great 
events  proceeding  in  Europe  may  affect 
the  world  situation  profoundly;  and  in 
a  general  sense  it  is  true  to  say  that 
Japan  feels  the  spur  of  the  situation 
and  is  likely  to  respond  in  ways  that  in 
any  case  must  constitute  a  danger. 

The  question  of  the  Pacific  cannot  be 
approached  merely  from  its  Asiatic 
side;  there  is  also  an  American  one. 
And  to  understand  that  we  must  glance 

Japan  has  clearly  made  up  her  mind  that  now,  if  ever, 
is  her   opportunity   of   absorbing   Northern   China. 

133 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

back  at  the  course  of  our  history.  Our 
early  statesmen,  George  Washington 
and  Monroe  among  them,  wisely  be- 
lieved that  our  remoteness  from  Europe 
was  our  greatest  blessing,  and  that  we 
should  utilize  it  by  keeping  out  of  all 
possible  entanglements.  It  might  even 
be  better  on  occasion  not  to  trade  with 
Europe  at  all  than  to  run  the  risk  of 
compUcations.  As  to  diplomatic  inter- 
course, the  less  the  better ;  and  that  car- 
ried on  by  plain  citizens;  men  of  busi- 
ness or  of  law.  That  position  was  en- 
tirely comprehensible,  let  us  say  wise. 

It  was  wise,  in  view  of  our  size  at 
that  epoch,  of  our  relations  with  the  out- 
side world,  and  of  the  state  of  communi- 
cations. But  from  that  epoch  to  the 
present,  in  a  hundred  years  or  so,  a  tre- 
mendous transformation  has  proceeded. 
Our  people  have  slowly  filled  up  our 
134 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

boundaries,  and  in  places  have  already 
begun  to  migrate  beyond.  Communi- 
cation has  been  phenomenally  increased 
and  cheapened.  Our  relations  with 
the  outside  world  have  grown  by  leaps 
and  bounds.  Would  Washington,  at 
the  present  day,  lay  down  for  us  the 
same  policy  as  he  did  a  century  ago? 
It  is  not  conceivable. 

Already,  by  1823,  the  situation  had 
changed.  Our  power  had  increased, 
our  outlook  widened;  and  we  stated  to 
France  and  Russia,  and  other  Powers, 
who  were  glancing  across  the  Atlantic 
at  South  America,  that  we  were  more 
interested  in  that  part  of  the  world  than 
they,  and  that  we  desired  them  to  ab- 
stain from  interference  there. 

Then  came  the  steamboat,  and  the 
Atlantic  and  all  the  other  seas  began 
to  dwindle.  And  after  the  steamboat 
135 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

came  the  telegraph,  and  a  message 
flashed  from  America  to  Europe  in  sec- 
onds instead  of  weeks  or  months.  In 
1861  came  a  great  miHtary  and  naval  ex- 
pedition of  France  against  Mexico ;  but 
it  so  happened  that  the  United  States 
was  able  to  place  half  a  million  trained 
soldiers  in  the  field  at  that  epoch,  and 
eventually  compelled  France  to  with- 
draw. 

Since  then  the  processes  of  expansion 
and  interpenetration  have  proceeded, 
with  ever-increasing  velocity.  At  the 
present  day  a  population  about  equal 
to  that  of  France  and  Germany  occu- 
pies in  the  United  States  a  territory 
that  could  hold  those  two  countries  six 
times  over.  Within  the  last  few  years 
we  have  come  into  close  contact  with 
the  Spanish- American  people  lying  to 
the  south  of  us.  We  have  fought 
136 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

Spain,  and  taken  from  her  Cuba  and 
the  PhiKppines;  we  have  dug  a  canal 
through  Spanish- American  territory ; 
we  have  imposed  a  protectorate  on  some 
part  of  Central  America;  and  finally 
we  have  intervened,  though  with  uncer- 
tain policies,  in  the  internal  affairs  of 
Mexico.  These  are  all  symptoms  of  a 
tendency  of  which  the  foundations  are 
to  be  found  in  the  racial  and  economic 
expansion  that  we  are  now  going 
through.  And  it  is  safe  to  predict  that 
this  expansion  still  has  before  it  a 
lengthy  future. 

The  effect  of  these  events  on  the 
United  States  in  terms  military  pre- 
sents features  of  resemblance  with  what 
may  be  seen  in  Germany.  In  the  lat- 
ter country  a  tremendous  outburst  of 
economic  energy  was  coupled  with  a 
large  increase  of  industrialism  and  city 
137 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

population.  Food  production  rapidly 
fell  towards  the  danger  point.  A  badly 
conducted  diplomatic  policy  tended  to 
encircle  Germany  with  enemies  and 
threaten  her  supplies ;  while  on  the  other 
hand  colonial  ambition  was  aroused. 
And  a  powerful  navy  was  the  inevitable 
result. 

In  the  United  States  the  reasons 
through  which  a  great  fleet  came  into 
existence  were  similar  but  not  the  same. 
The  Spanish  war  revealed  the  inade- 
quacy of  our  armaments; — ^no  Ameri- 
can citizen  can  afford  to  leave  unread 
Admiral  Chadwyck's  admirable  account 
of  how  some  of  our  supposed  men-of- 
war  had  to  be  towed  around  the  Carib- 
bean Sea!  This  revelation,  together 
with  the  increasing  demand  for  the  ap- 
plication of  moral  pressure  at  Spanish- 
American  ports,  indicated  the  need  for 
138 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

an  adequate  navy.  The  pressure  of 
our  capital,  of  our  exports,  of  our  min- 
ing and  engineering  experts;  the  dig- 
ging of  Panama;  the  consciousness  of 
future  developments  of  ever-increasing 
magnitude  in  the  same  direction;  all 
made  for  the  creation  of  the  present 
American  navy. 

But  the  expansion  of  the  United 
States  can  only  be  seen  in  its  true  pro- 
portions as  a  phase  of  the  expansion  of 
England.  And  England,  in  the  form 
of  Canada,  lies  to  the  north  of  us,  our 
neighbor  on  the  American  continent. 
Canada  and  the  United  States  together 
are  roughly  of  the  same  size  as  all 
Europe  including  European  Russia;  or 
of  the  Russian  Empire;  or  of  China;  or 
of  the  federation  which  may  be  created 
some  day  in  South  America.  The 
climatic,  agricultural,  and  economic 
139 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

conditions  of  the  two  countries  are  sim- 
ilar. Political  and  social  ideas  are 
tending  in  the  same  general  direction. 
A  common  language  creates  a  strong 
bond,  increased  by  a  similar  tendency 
towards  pacific  and  industrial  aims. 
The  most  serious  international  prob- 
lems, those  that  come  from  over  the 
Atlantic  and  over  the  Pacific,  are  the 
same  for  both  countries.  To  the  think- 
ing American,  Canada  is  virtually  with 
us,  save  for  an  uncomfortable  line  of 
customs  that  checks  a  closer  intercourse 
between  two  kindred  conmiunities. 

Canada  and  the  United  States  are 
face  to  face  with  the  same  troublesome 
and  dangerous  question,  that  of  Asiatic 
immigration.  It  fortunately  does  not 
belong  to  the  present  discussion,  and  we 
need  only  note  its  danger  and  difficulty, 
with  one  point  more.  With  the  same 
140 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

problem  to  face,  Canada  and  the 
United  States  inevitably  tend  to  act  to- 
gether. It  is  probable  that  behind  the 
scenes  British  diplomacy,  with  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  Japanese  alliance,  has  al- 
ready attempted  to  find  a  solution  by 
pacific  means.  If  such  means  should 
fail  ultimately,  then  it  is  our  fleet  com- 
ing through  Panama  into  the  Pacific 
that  must  protect  not  only  the  coast  of 
California  but,  should  the  occasion  arise, 
that  of  British  Columbia  as  well. 

It  is  through  cooperation  between 
Canada  and  the  United  States,  it  is  at 
the  point  where  the  English  speaking 
people  bulk  largest  in  numbers  and 
space,  that  a  greater  association  can  be 
formed.  For  a  good  many  years  past' 
Great  Britain  has  attempted  to  find  a 
formula  for  Imperial  Federation.  She 
has  failed.  And  her  failure  is  due  to 
141 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

two  things.  One  is,  that  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  build  a  tarifF  wall  within  which 
she  and  her  widespread  colonies  can 
enter  on  equal  terms.  The  other  reason 
is  that,  however  great  her  wealth  and 
power,  she  is  too  small  and  lies  in  a 
geographical  spot  that  is  bad  as  the  ex- 
pansion of  the  world  proceeds  to-day. 

"The  world  cares  far  less  than  it  did 
twenty-five  or  even  ten  years  ago  about 
what  the  terms  empire,  monarchy,  re- 
public, federation,  may  be  held  to  im- 
ply; but  it  cares  more  than  ever  it  did 
about  the  economic  conditions  affecting 
the  ordinary  citizen  under  whatever 
form  of  government  he  may  be  living. 
...  It  is  along  some  such  lines  as  these 
that  the  advent  of  the  American  fleet 
into  the  Pacific  should  bring  us  closer  to 
the  other  English-speaking  states,  and 
lay  the  foundations  of  a  new  and  greater 
142 


EUROPE— ASIA— AMERICA 

empire.  We  surely  have  outgrown  any 
jealousy,  any  dislike,  with  which  we  for- 
merly looked  on  the  British  flag.  We 
surely  have  become  too  great  to  con- 
tinue the  country  attorney  policies  that 
have  too  often  done  duty  for  statesman- 
ship in  the  conduct  of  our  foreign  af- 
fairs. We  surely  can  see  the  advan- 
tage, and  the  honor,  of  advancing  on  a 
broadened  path  of  nationalism  toward 
a  future  in  which  we  should  form  the 
solid  and  splendid  base  of  a  group  of 
mutually  supporting  Commonwealths. 
With  its  center  and  bulk  of  population 
stretching  from  Key  West  to  Vancou- 
ver, one  of  its  members  wide  across  the 
Atlantic,  another  wide  across  the  Pa- 
cific, the  English-speaking  world  would 
take  a  new  shape,  and  the  British  Em- 
pire would  make  way  for  something  far 
stronger,  in  which  not  only  Great  Brit- 
143 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

ain  and  the  United  States  would  find 
an  equal  place,  but  also  the  four  grow- 
ing young  sisters,  Canada,  New  Zea- 
land, Australia,  and  South  Africa.  To 
understand  and  to  wish  a  thing  is  half 
way  to  having  it.  If  in  the  momentous 
developments  of  the  next  few  years,  in 
which  the  Canal  and  Asia  must  play  a 
larger  part,  we  fix  our  minds  on  the  pos- 
sibilities here  indicated,  not  in  any  petty 
spirit  of  aggrandizement,  but  in  that 
broader  and  humane  spirit  that  has 
marked  so  much  of  our  Mother  Coun- 
try's accomplished  work,  who  knows 
but  that  we  in  turn  may  carry  that  work 
on  to  even  greater  ends?  All  that  we 
need  is  to  rise  to  a  larger  view  of  our 
responsibilities."  ^ 

4  R.    M.    Johnston,   "The    Imperial   Future   of   the 
United  States."    Infantry  Journal,  November,  1913. 

144 


CHAPTER  VII 

MILITARY  EXPERIENCES  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES 

MILITARY  history  is  much  ob- 
scured by  the  survivor,  the  his- 
torian and  the  journaUst.  They  are 
virtually  banded  in  an  unholy  alliance 
to  tell  us  everything  except  what  we 
really  ought  to  know.  And  even  in 
what  they  do  tell  us,  accuracy  is  more 
completely  sacrificed  than  in  almost  any 
branch  of  mental  activity.  This  pro- 
ceeds inevitably  from  the  very  nature 
of  war. 

The  soldier  knows  too  little,  and  the 
general  often  enough  too  much,  about 
the  facts.     The  battle  is  mostly  smoke, 
145 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

confusion,  and  excitement,  in  which 
little  is  seen  and  all  is  distorted.  The 
weary  survivor,  unless  the  event  is  of  a 
very  unusual  or  striking  description,  be- 
gins to  get  his  impressions  at  night,  sit- 
ting around  the  camp-fire,  from  com- 
rades about  as  well  informed  as  himself. 
But  some  men  are  natural  talkers,  some 
have  imagination.  And  these  blaze  out 
a  path,  uncertainly  compounded  of  fact 
and  fiction,  along  which  the  rest  follow. 
In  due  course  the  camp-fire  legends  be- 
come crystallized.  And  by  the  time 
the  old  soldier  is  fighting  the  old  battles 
over  for  his  grandchildren,  the  residuum 
of  fact  is  usually  very  elusive  indeed. 

The  general  sees  better  and  knows 
more;  yet  he  may  be  even  more  unreli- 
able as  a  witness.  For  he  has  responsi- 
bilities and  may  be  implicated.  Mili- 
tary operations  are  in  their  nature  full 
146 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

of  unforeseen  incidents,  marked  by  a 
continuous  series  of  errors  based  on 
misinformation,  or  miscalculation,  or 
the  failure  of  subordinates.  The  gen- 
eral leaves  these  for  the  most  part  out 
of  his  account,  puts  a  good  face  on  what 
is  usually  a  pretty  bad  matter,  and 
makes  things  come  out  as  near  as  pos- 
sible to  some  stock  pattern  of  what 
really  ought  to  have  happened — but 
didn't! 

The  newspaperman,  the  historian, 
occasionally  help  a  little,  but  not  very 
much.  They  are  better  situated  for 
giving  a  fair  account,  even  if  not  eye 
witnesses,  than  the  combatants  them- 
selves. But  they  have  graven  images 
of  their  own.  They  are  looking  for  a 
drama,  for  deeds  of  heroism,  for  satis- 
factions of  national  prejudices,  and  all 
things  that  will  enable  them  to  mobilize 
147 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

their  eloquence.  What  they  will  not  do 
is  to  dig  down  into  those  hidden  springs 
from  which  proceed  the  success  or  the 
failure  of  armies: — their  organization; 
their  armament ;  their  tactics ;  their  sup- 
ply system;  the  training  of  their  regi- 
mental officers,  of  their  staff,  of  their 
higher  command;  their  system  of  com- 
mand ;  and  the  national  policy  of  which 
these  things  are  just  so  many  expres- 
sions. Such  matters  do  not  make  head- 
lines or  motion  pictures;  they  require 
knowledge,  application,  and  study;  and 
consequently  they  are  labeled  milita- 
rism, and  scrapped! 

So  what  with  the  great  difficulty  of 
dealing  with  the  evidence,  an^  with  the 
wrong  proclivities  of  those  who  set  it 
before  the  public,  it  is  not  difficult  for  a 
whole  nation  to  grow  up  in  a  state  of 
complete  misconception  as  to  its  own 
148 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

military  history.  The  people  of  the 
United  States  are  precisely  in  that  situ- 
ation. To  remedy  it  we  require  the 
complete  rewriting  of  our  military  his- 
tory— a  formidable  task.  Here,  there 
is  nothing  to  be  done  save  to  pick  out  a 
few  sahent  facts  and  to  indicate  their 
bearings. 

Our  worst  tradition  was  early  estab- 
lished, that  of  ill-considered,  wasteful 
and  ineffective  half  measures.  It  is 
reckoned  that  during  the  War  of  Inde- 
pendence there  were  395,000  enrol- 
ments for  service,  many  of  them  of 
course  of  the  same  man  presenting  him- 
self again.  Yet  Washington  was 
never  able  to  place  20,000  men  in  line, 
and  was  generally  so  hopelessly  inferior 
that  he  could  not  venture  on  decisive 
operations.  His  most  brilliant  achieve- 
ments were  accomplished  at  the  head  of 
149 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

2,500  men.  Under  this  system  it  cost 
$170,000,000  to  carry  the  war  through, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  pensions  paid  to 
over  95,000  persons,  some  of  which, 
widows  of  survivors,  were  still  living  and 
drawing  their  pay,  a  century  later. 

The  source  of  the  mischief  lay  in  the 
fact  that  the  control  of  the  whole  matter 
was  with  the  Continental  Congress,  and 
that  this  body  was  jealous  of  a  standing 
army,  had  no  knowledge  of  military 
questions,  and  was  inclined  for  cheese- 
paring. This  was  perhaps  inevitable, 
but  it  was  costly,  in  lives,  time,  and 
money.  Congress  chose  to  believe,  for 
no  reasons  that  will  bear  examination, 
that  the  struggle  would  be  short,  and 
decided  to  enhst  men  for  twelve  months, 
which,  quite  apart  from  anything  else, 
was  not  nearly  long  enough  to  give 
them  a  discipline  and  soUdity  approach- 
150 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

ing  that  of  the  King's  soldiers.  Wash- 
ington continuously  protested,  but  in 
vain.  He  was  always  told  that  if  these 
enlisted  regulars  were  insufficient  there 
was  always  the  militia  to  fall  back  upon ! 
It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  Lex- 
ington and  Bunker  Hill,  or  rather  the 
false  presentation  of  those  events,  were 
among  the  worst  misfortunes  that  ever 
overtook  this  country.  The  legend  of 
the  minute  man,  of  the  patriot  rising  in 
his  wrath,  reaching  for  his  old  gun  from 
over  the  ancestral  mantel,  driving  the 
mercenaries  of  George  III  before  him, 
has  done  and  still  does  an  incalculable 
amount  of  mischief.  Of  course  the 
farmer  was  patriotic,  could  on  occasion 
shoot  a  redcoat  or  even  give  his  life  for 
the  cause.  But  to  suppose  that  the 
farmer,  collectively  as  militia,  could 
face  British  infantry  in  the  field  under 
151 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

any  circumstances  save  those  of  surprise 
or  irregular  fighting  is  absurd.  Even 
the  French  infantry  could  hardly  do 
that,  as  Dettingen,  and  Fontenoy  and 
the  Plains  of  Abraham  had  demon- 
strated. The  militia  might  help  with 
numbers  in  such  a  blockade  as  that  of 
Boston,  or  hold  a  breastwork  against  a 
frontal  attack.  Beyond  that  it  was 
a  nuisance.  Washington  himself  de- 
clared that  the  militia  was  worse  than 
useless  and  had  been  the  origin  of  all 
our  misfortunes.  And  he  was  surely  a 
competent  witness. 

After  the  War  of  Independence 
false  economy  continued  to  rule,  with 
the  same  jealousy  of  a  regular  army  and 
the  same  aberration  as  to  the  value  of 
militia.  At  the  time  when  Bonaparte 
became  First  Consul  an  era  of  expan- 
sion to  the  West  opened,  while  Europe 
152 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

and  the  Atlantic  witnessed  gigantic 
struggles  in  which  our  trade  interests 
were  seriously  threatened.  We  slowly 
drifted  into  war  with  Great  Britain, 
relying  meanwhile  on  the  minute  man 
chimera  to  meet  the  emergency  when  it 
should  burst  on  us.  Our  army  con- 
sisted of  6,700  men. 

Congress  once  more  attacked  the  situ- 
ation by  raising  twelve  months'  troops, 
who  were  to  be  supported  by  a  suitable 
background  of  militia.  In  all  over 
527,000  enrolments  occurred,  a  greater 
number  than  that  of  the  huge  army  with 
which  Napoleon  was  then  struggling  to 
reach  Moscow.  Of  these,  50,000  were 
regulars.  The  reader  may  be  spared 
the  pitiful,  almost  incredible,  details  of 
the  administrative  mismanagement  into 
which  Congress  plunged  these  forces. 
It  need  only  be  said  that  Great  Britain 
153 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

held  her  own  along  the  Canadian  border 
with  4,000  regulars,  gradually  increas- 
ing to  16,000,  with  some  militia  back- 
ing. Some  of  our  performances  on  the 
frontier  cannot  be  read  without  a  blush. 
A  small  force  of  English  dispersed  our 
militia  near  Washington  and  raided  the 
national  capital  with  complete  impu- 
nity. The  cost  of  our  military  effort, 
one  of  the  most  disgracefully  ineffective 
recorded  in  history,  came  to  nearly  250 
millions  of  dollars. 

The  close  of  the  war  was  marked  by 
two  redeeming  incidents.  One  was  the 
disastrous  failure  of  an  English  force 
to  carry  Jackson's  breastworks  at  New 
Orleans  by  frontal  attack.  The  other 
was  the  discovery  of  that  brilliant  sol- 
dier Winfield  Scott,  who  did  something 
towards  making  our  troops  in  the  North 
efficient. 

154 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

For  a  few  years  after  these  illuminat- 
ing events  Congress  maintained  the 
army  on  a  slightly  higher  level.  In 
1821,  however,  the  old  tendency  asserted 
itself,  and  the  army  was  reduced  to 
6,000  men,  and  in  another  ten  years  we 
were  paying  the  price.  Indian  troubles 
broke  out  in  the  Northwest  and  in  Flor- 
ida. We  had  no  troops  available,  and 
for  lack  of  a  very  few  battalions  of  reg- 
ulars we  had  to  call  out  over  50,000 
militia,  to  spend  thirty  millions  and  to 
face  seven  years  of  war  and  disorder  in 
the  Southeast. 

In  1846  came  the  Mexican  War, 
marked  by  the  same  deplorable  features 
as  our  previous  enterprises,  but  in  part 
redeemed  by  the  brilliancy  of  our  of- 
ficers and  the  high  tactical  quality  of 
our  scanty  battalions  of  regulars.  But 
it  was  not  until  the  great  Civil  War 
155 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

that  the  United  States  attacked  a  mili- 
tary problem  on  anything  like  a  large 
scale,  and  it  is  at  that  point  that  it  is 
best  to  investigate  and  to  draw  lessons. 
The  Civil  War  was  quite  unnecessaiy 
and  preventable.  The  slavery  question 
had  to  be  solved.  England  had  solved 
it  as  an  economic  proposition.  Opinion 
in  the  United  States,  though  inflamed 
on  the  surface,  was  visibly  tending  to- 
wards such  a  solution.  But  unfortu- 
nately every  hothead  in  the  country 
knew  that  there  was  no  power  in  our  in- 
stitutions to  enforce  law  and  order. 
Our  army  numbered  less  than  17,000 
men,  widely  dispersed,  and  with  as 
much  on  its  hands  as  it  could  possibly 
attend  to.  There  was  no  force  dispos- 
able to  control  a  district  that  should  be 
inchned  to  break  away  from  central 
control. 

156 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

It  was  not  necessary  that  the  United 
States  should  be  a  inihtarist  country. 
We  did  not  need  a  miUion  or  two  of 
soldiers,  nor  half  a  million,  nor  even  a 
hundred  thousand.  If  we  had  had  just 
sixty  thousand  troops  at  that  time,  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  no  civil  war  could  have 
taken  place.  With  sixty  thousand  men, 
however  widely  dispersed,  we  could  pre- 
simiably  have  collected  two  or  three 
brigades  with  which  to  occupy  Rich- 
mond, Charleston,  and  New  Orleans 
when  symptoms  of  rebellion  appeared 
and  long  before  a  local  militia  could  be 
even  assembled  by  the  secession  leaders. 
The  fact  that  the  Government  could 
police  the  country  would  have  been  so 
obvious  that  the  Southern  leaders  would 
probably  never  have  considered  seces- 
sion, and  that  if  they  had  the  Southern 
oflScers  would  not  have  deserted  their 
157 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

country  for  their  state.  Even  had  they 
done  so,  it  would  not  have  changed  the 
situation.  The  rank  and  file,  in  1861, 
stuck  to  their  colors,  and  the  only  diffi- 
culty would  have  been  to  replace  40  per 
cent,  of  the  officers,  or  to  get  along 
short-handed,  a  minor  problem. 

In  connection  with  the  Civil  War  we 
find  the  same  conspicuous  incapacity  to 
handle  a  military  question  that  our 
elected  bodies  have  shown  so  consist- 
ently and  so  disastrously  in  terms  of 
human  life  and  treasure.  The  gro- 
tesque and  outrageous  notion  was  put 
forward,  though  the  military  advisers 
of  the  Administration  offered  per- 
fectly sound  advice,  that  75,000  volun- 
teers enrolled  for  three  months  could 
do  the  business.  It  was  a  policy  so 
ignorant,  so  inept,  that  sent  so  many 
untrained  citizens  to  an  unnecessary 
158 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

death,  that  it  ahnost  deserves  to  be 
called  criminal.  A  few  weeks  sufficed 
to  demonstrate  the  futility  of  that  meas- 
ure, but  the  whole  terrible  length  of  the 
war  was  not  enough  to  remedy  another 
fundamental  misconception  that  per- 
haps cost  the  country  even  more  in 
terms  of  time,  blood,  and  money.  Reg- 
iments were  organized  as  units,  with  no 
system  of  depots  for  training  recruits 
and  drafting  them  into  the  battalion  at 
the  front.  All  the  experience  of  every 
country  for  a  hundred  years  past  over- 
whelmingly demonstrates  that  behind 
the  trained  unit  at  the  front  there  must 
be  the  mechanism  for  keeping  its  ranks 
full.  Instead  of  conforming  to  this 
standard  we  preferred,  save  for  the  not- 
able exception  of  the  State  of  Wiscon- 
sin, to  let  seasoned  units  gradually  get 
weaker  and  weaker,  and  to  send  our 
159 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

raw  recruits  to  the  fray,  with  raw  of- 
ficers in  raw  regiments. 

There  were  reasons,  unfortunately, 
for  all  these  things — political  reasons. 
And  that  is  one  more  illustration  of  the 
evil  of  leaving  military  policy  to  the  ex- 
clusive control  of  Congress.  The  fact 
is  that  no  subject  is  more  difficult  in  its 
range  of  historical,  psychological,  and 
technical  factors,  than  the  military  art; 
yet  by  one  of  those  strange  hallucina- 
tions to  which  man  is  subject,  there  is 
none  on  which  the  layman  feels  so  com- 
petent to  pass  an  opinion.  And  the 
less  he  knows  about  it,  the  more  drastic 
his  opinion.  It  is  only  when  he  begins 
to  dig  in  to  the  theoretical  and  prac- 
tical difficulties  that  surround  the  sol- 
dier that  his  yiews  become  more  tenta- 
tive. 

Until  we  have  persuaded  Congress 
160 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

of  this  fact,  until  it  has  become  will- 
ing to  delegate  some  authority  to 
boards  of  experts,  as  it  might  in  ques- 
tions of  engineering,  sanitation,  for- 
estry and  so  on,  there  is  little  hope  of 
wiser  views  prevailing.  But  this  is  a 
digression,  and  we  must  return  to  the 
Civil  War. 

Men  fought  bravely  in  the  Civil  War, 
and  even  skilfully  when  on  the  defen- 
sive. But  on  the  tactical  offensive  there 
was  little  skill,  save  here  and  there  in 
the  final  phases.  Every  army  attack- 
ing in  hne  tended  to  lose  cohesion  and 
resolve  itself  into  a  mob  the  instant  it 
was  called  on  to  advance  under  fire. 
The  Second  Manassas  offers  what  may 
be  described  as  a  fair  average  sample 
of  this  tendency,  inevitable  from  the 
lack  of  training  of  the  men,  the  com- 
pany commanders,  the  regimental  of- 
161 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

ficers,  the  staff  and  the  higher  command, 
in  their  respective  duties. 

At  the  Second  Manassas  we  have  on 
the  part  of  Lee  briUiant  strategy;  on 
the  part  of  Lee's  troops,  really  fine 
marching.  Then  came  the  tactical 
shock.  On  the  second  day  of  the  bat- 
tle, after  Pope  had  worn  his  army  out, 
the  Confederates  advanced  to  force  the 
decision.  Longstreet's  corps  deployed 
on  a  front  of  about  two  miles,  moved 
forward  about  a  mile  to  a  mile  and  a 
half,  sweeping  back  such  Federal  forces 
as  were  in  its  front.  But  at  the  end  of 
that  advance,  it  had  become  a  confused 
mass  of  troops,  in  which  brigade  and 
divisional  organizations  had  been  lost, 
and  in  many  cases  even  regimental  ones. 
On  the  sky  line,  as  the  troops  moved  to 
the  attack,  was  a  solitary  house,  and 
it  acted  as  an  irresistible  magnet  on  the 
16^ 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

whole  line.  At  that  house  one  can 
trace  the  presence  of  men  from  almost 
every  single  unit  of  Longstreet's  corps, 
except  the  reserve  division  (Ander- 
son's). In  other  words,  as  the  result 
of  a  carefully  planned  attack,  with 
troops  in  a  state  of  high  morale,  all 
tactical  cohesion  was  lost  in  an  advance 
of  a  little  more  than  a  mile,  and  there 
was  left  something  little  better  than  a 
helpless  mob. 

This  illustrates  very  well  why  the 
battles  of  the  Civil  War  were  as  a  rule 
barren  of  results.  It  was  the  tactical 
weakness  of  the  armies,  their  lack  of 
cohesion,  their  inability  to  maintain  for- 
mations, among  other  things,  that  pre- 
vented a  real  decision  being  reached  on 
the  battle  ground.  And  this  tactical 
weakness  proceeded  mainly  from  the 
fact  that  there  was  no  sohd  instruction, 
163 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

based  on  carefully  framed  tactical 
theories,  behind  the  regimental  officers, 
the  higher  command,  and  the  staff.  To 
obtain  tactical  cohesion  with  even  the 
best  trained  officers  was  a  difficult 
enough  proposition,  as  Fritz  Honig 
had  so  clearly  perceived  at  Mars-la- 
Tour.  But  with  an  army  in  which  the 
higher  command  and  the  staff  had 
literally  had  no  training  at  all,  and  the 
regimental  officers  nothing  beyond 
some  hasty  and  superficial  barrackyard 
drills,  what  could  be  expected?  In 
Longstreet's  advance  there  was  no  staff 
control  of  any  sort,  while  the  brigadier 
generals  seem  to  have  occupied  most  of 
their  time  galloping  around  trying  to 
find  where  the  units  of  their  brigades 
had  got  to !  In  the  upshot  they,  like  their 
men,  naturally  reached  Chinn's  house !  ^ 

1  From  Homer  Lea's  "Valor  of  Ignorance,"  I  note 

164 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  pursue 
further  this  criticism  of  the  armies  en- 
gaged in  the  slow  and  deadly  conflict 
of  the  Civil  War.  But  the  salient 
points  have  been  made,  and  details 
would  merely  confuse  the  issues  which 
will  be  presented  to  the  reader  in  the 
next  chapter.  It  will  be  best  to  turn 
now  to  the  credit  side  of  the  Civil  War 
and  to  see  whether,  in  terms  of  military 
organization  or  art,  there  is  anything  to 
be  entered  in  that  column. 

The  high  morale  and  good  fighting 
qualities  of  the  American  citizen  pro- 
duced, as  we  have  seen,  some  hard,  if 
unskilful,  fighting.  Generals  of  great 
ability  came  forward,  especially  on  the 
Southern  side.     During  the  last  phase 

that  oyer  6,000  officers  were  cashiered  or  discharged 
from  the  Union  Army,  while  over  22,000  resigned!  I 
have  not  verified  these  figures. — The  lamentable  busi- 
ness of  the  first  Bull  Run  I  have  described  in  my 
"Bull  Run— Its  Strategy  and  Tactics." 

165 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

of  the  war  Grant  displayed  military 
power  and  intelligence  for  the  North, 
while  the  handling  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  showed  a  greatly  improved 
technique  in  the  system  of  orders  and 
control.  Yet  in  all  this  there  was  little 
more  than  a  natural  consequence  from 
the  conditions,  containing  no  new  in- 
struction. 

It  was  only  in  one  respect  that  new 
instruction  was  to  be  derived  from  the 
war.  This  was  in  the  last  organization 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  now  a 
rapidly  acting  and  well  controlled  body, 
in  which  one  corps  was  of  special  mo- 
bility because  mounted.  In  the  last 
campaign  Sheridan's  conmiand  does  not 
play  the  part  of  a  reserve  of  cavalry ;  it 
does  not  play  the  part  even  of  an  inde- 
pendent cavalry  corps;  but  it  is  clearly 
a  corps  in  the  line  of  Grant's  army,  a 
166 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

corps  somewhat  reduced  in  fighting 
power  but  greatly  increased  in  moving 
power.  The  high  mobihty  of  Grant's 
army  as  a  whole,  with  this  special  veloc- 
ity in  one  of  its  corps,  is  what  enabled 
him,  in  1865,  to  reach  Lynchburg  before 
Lee  and  to  terminate  the  war.  The 
relation  of  Sheridan's  corps  to  Grant's 
army  constitutes  a  new  departure  in 
the  composition  of  armies,  and  our  one 
solid  contribution  to  the  art  of  war. 

From  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  to 
the  present  there  are  more  lessons  to  be 
learned,  but  they  need  not  affect  the 
final  argument.  Our  army  learned 
many  things  in  the  Spanish  war:  at 
first  the  cost  of  unpreparedness ;  then, 
in  Cuba,  how  not  to  fight ;  later,  in  the 
Philippines,  after  a  little  experience, 
how  to  fight  on  a  small  scale.  This  was 
to  the  good  as  far  as  it  went.  New 
167 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

blood  was  poured  into  the  army. 
Those  who  were  behind  the  scenes  did  a 
lot  of  thinking.  And  presently  army 
reform,  under  the  wise  and  patriotic 
guidance  of  Mr.  Root,  began  to  take 
shape.  We  started  in  to  catch  up  a 
century  or  so  of  military  progress. 
Mr.  Root  created  a  General  Staff,  an 
institution  still  viewed  with  suspicion 
by  the  conservatives.  An  Army  War 
College  came  into  existence;  and  a  re- 
formed Army  school  at  Fort  Leaven- 
worth. And  all  of  these  were  indis- 
pensable foundations  for  the  higher 
control  and  command  of  the  United 
States  army.  But  the  greatest  prob- 
lem of  all  was  left  unsolved,  that  of  the 
creation  of  a  real  United  States  army, 
an  army  fit  in  its  relation  to  national 
policy  and  purposes,  adequate  for  all 
and  any  such  emergencies  as  might 
168 


MILITARY  EXPERIENCES 

reasonably  be  perceived  on  our  political 
horizon.  How  such  an  army  should  be 
constituted  is  a  question  that  must  now 
be  approached. 


169 


CHAPTER  VIII 

OUR  NATIONAL   DEFENSE   POLICY 

THE  size  of  our  army  is  inconsider- 
able. The  last  army  list  shows 
about  32,000  infantry — say  three  quar- 
ters of  an  army  corps  ^ — including  the 
Porto  Rico  regiment.  Our  reserve  sys- 
tem, which  has  little  in  common  with 
those  modeled  on  Scharnhorst's  reforms 
a  century  ago,  is  reputed  to  be  able  to 
produce,  in  a  national  emergency,  an 
additional  16  men!  Then  we  have  the 
militia.     And  the  militia  has  been  the 

1  The  size  of  army  corps  and  divisions  varies ;  the 
standards  here  adopted  will  be  about  42,000  men  to 
an  army  corps  and  about  12,500  to  a  division.  The 
United  States  has  no  army  corps;  but  does  have,  on 
paper,  a  faulty  divisional  organization  of  a  little  over 
20,000  men  to  the  division. 

170 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

grandest  asset  of  our  public  orators, 
since  Lexington.  As  a  plain  fact,  how- 
ever, it  is  reckoned  that  the  physically 
fit  and  slightly  trained  militia  amounts 
to  not  over  80,000  men ;  while  our  miU- 
tary  organization  will  remain  an  organi- 
zation for  deliberate  murder  until 
things  are  so  adjusted  that  a  militia 
battalion  shall  get  not  less  than  three 
months  under  canvas  before  being 
sent  to  the  front.  And  even  at 
that  .  .  .! 

The  best  things  we  have  are  our  be- 
ginnings of  a  Staff,  our  Service  Schools, 
West  Point,  and  a  body  of  capable  of- 
ficers mostly  of  junior  rank  who  know 
our  weaknesses  and  could  remedy  them 
if  they  only  got  a  chance.  If  we  with- 
drew every  infantryman  from  Panama, 
the  Philippines,  Honolulu,  Porto  Rico 
and  Alaska,  and  massed  them  together, 
171 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

we  should  still  fall  considerably  short  of 
a  single  army  corps.  Germany  at  this 
moment  is  reckoned  to  have  73  army 
corps  in  the  field,  and  Germany  is  a 
smaller  country  than  we  are,  a  poorer 
country,  and  one  for  which  the  future 
opens  less  brightly.  The  army  of 
Montenegro,  a  country  that  the  State 
of  New  Jersey  could  put  in  its  pocket, 
is  quite  the  equal  if  not  the  superior  of 
our  own.  Switzerland  counts  her  men 
by  the  quarter  and  half  million;  while 
England  raises  armies  a  million  at  a 
time,  in  a  very  doubtful  attempt  to  make 
up  for  a  long  period  of  neglect  and  de- 
ficiency. 

Now  we  have  no  problem  in  terms  of 
millions  confronting  us ;  we  can  get  off 
very  much  more  cheaply  than  that. 
But  our  solution  does  require  the  vir- 
tual scrapping  of  our  present  so-called 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

army,  and  taking  a  fresh  start  on  a  dif- 
ferent basis.  To  tinker  with  what  we 
have  now  is  merely  pursuing  the  shut- 
your-eyes  course  of  which  Belgium  has 
lately  been  giving  such  a  lamentable  ex- 
ample. Let  us  not  tinker,  let  us  open 
our  eyes  to  facts,  let  us  look  around  the 
world's  horizon  and  consider  what  are 
the  emergencies  we  should  reasonably 
anticipate.  And  then,  let  us  remodel 
our  army  to  fit  those  circumstances. 

One  thing  is  beyond  controversy, 
which  is  that  the  policy  of  this  country 
is  non-aggressive  in  spirit  or  theory. 
But  in  fact,  however,  there  is  in  it  an 
element  of  aggression.  This  aggres- 
siveness proceeds  in  part  from  the  Mon- 
roe Doctrine  and  in  part  from  the  eco- 
nomic push  southwards  which  has  al- 
ready been  noted.  We  disclaim  all 
aggressiveness  and  we  honestly  mean 
17S 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

what  we  say,  but  in  spite  of  ourselves 
our  relations  with  Spanish  America  in- 
volve the  increasing  friction  of  two  sur- 
faces one  of  which  is  expanding  while 
the  other  is,  in  places  at  least,  station- 
ary. Notwithstanding  all  this  we 
should  certainly  dismiss  from  our  minds 
aggressiveness  when  studying  our  mili- 
tary needs.  We  should  be  concerned 
only  with  defense,  or  questions  that  may 
be  forced  on  us. 

It  has  been  argued  that  Germany 
was  a  danger.  In  point  of  fact  she  was. 
Behind  her  diplomatic  effort,  for  some 
years  past,  had  been  the  supreme  desire 
to  obtain  a  naval  base  in  the  knot  of  the 
trade  routes  rising  north  towards  Lon- 
don and  New  York  from  Gibraltar,  the 
South  Atlantic  and  Panama.  For  a 
brief  moment  she  thought  she  could  se- 
cure it  at  Agadir  or  Casablanca;  for 
174 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

many  years  she  watched  covetously  the 
West  Indian  Islands ;  and  her  relations 
with  Holland  and  Denmark  presented 
no  more  difficult  aspect  than  this  latent 
question  of  the  West  Indies.  Had 
Belgium  owned  Cura9ao,  or  St. 
Thomas,  how  sharply  we  should  have 
appreciated  the  difference  in  the  situa- 
tion to-day! 

The  danger  was  not  merely  lest  Ger- 
many should  acquire  an  Atlantic  base 
from  which  to  prosecute  her  designs; 
but  it  was  thought  by  many  that  she 
might  even  undertake  land  operations 
against  us.  Unquestionably  plans  for 
such  operations  exist,  though  that  does 
not  of  necessity  prove  much.  It  is, 
however,  difficult  to  conceive  any  diplo- 
matic understanding  or  international 
grouping  that  would  have  permitted 
Germany  to  embark  on  such  an  enter- 
175 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

prise.  On  the  other  hand,  the  idea  of 
a  raid  against  New  York  or  Boston 
could  never  even  have  arisen  were  it  not 
so  painfully  obvious  that  we  had  no 
means  for  effective  resistance.  As- 
sume Germany  diplomatically  free  to 
cross  the  sea  and  able  to  land  her  troops, 
— the  rest  would  be  easy.  The  ifs, 
however,  are  many;  and  in  a  moment 
we  will  consider  coast  defense  and  the 
navy  in  this  connection. 

To  dispose,  first  of  all,  of  Germany. 
Clearly  this  is  not  the  moment  to  attach 
too  great  importance  to  any  danger 
w^hich  she  may  be  supposed  to  present. 
It  is  too  early  (December,  1914)  to 
foretell  the  nature  of  the  settlement 
after  the  war;  but  it  is  not  too  early  to 
foretell  that  the  menace,  such  as  it  was, 
of  Germany  to  the  American  continents 
is  laid  on  the  shelf  for  some  years  to 
176 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

come.  There  is  therefore  no  need  to 
measure  up  our  requirements  for  de- 
fense on  that  standard.  For  questions 
far  more  serious  arise  in  connection 
with  other  countries;  and  in  dealing 
with  them  we  shall,  incidentally,  more 
than  cover  the  present  case  of  Germany. 

Japan  by  her  present  course  appar- 
ently holds  out  no  prospect  of  a  period 
of  disarmament  after  the  war.  She 
therefore  either  fears  Russia,  or  intends 
to  profit  from  the  depression  of  Europe 
to  develop  her  position  in  Asia.  To 
forestall  Russia  she  has  five,  ten  or  fif- 
teen years  in  which  to  break  off  and  or- 
ganize large  sections  of  northern  China. 
Or  if  that  should  prove  impracticable 
she  can  turn  to  the  Pacific,  and  there 
perhaps  find  more  favorable  opportu- 
nity in  our  weakness. 

The  taking  of  the  Philippines  from 
177 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

Spain  may  be  ranked  among  the  worst 
military  blunders  committed  by  any 
American  government — it  is  difficult  to 
put  the  matter  more  strongly.  It  is  a 
weak,  ex-centric,  military  position, 
fundamentally  indefensible  against  any 
strong  transpacific  power,  but  inevit- 
ably a  magnet  to  draw  troops  and  ships 
away  from  our  shores.  A  popular 
clamor  might  at  any  time  result  in  a 
weak  Administration  sending  the  bat- 
tle fleet  from  the  Atlantic  to  Manila. 
And  the  result  would  be  instantly  to 
lose  for  us  the  incalculable  influence  our 
fleet  has  given  us  these  last  ten  years  in 
all  North  Atlantic  questions;  while  at 
the  same  moment  we  should  jeopardize, 
for  no  adequate  purpose,  the  safety  of 
that  fleet  at  the  other  end  of  the  world 
by  attaching  it  to  a  base  far  too  weak 
to  give  it  the  indispensable  minimum  of 
178 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

support.  The  islands  are  together 
larger  than  Italy;  Luzon  is  about  four 
times  the  size  of  Belgium,  and  so  is 
Mindanao.  To  defend,  by  military 
means,  Luzon,  and  Mindanao,  and  the 
other  islands,  requires  a  large  force,  say 
two  or  three  army  corps  of  42,000  men 
each  backed  by  a  considerable  native 
army.  With  such  a  force  it  might  be 
reasonable  to  develop  a  great  dockyard 
and  arsenal  on  which  a  powerful  fleet 
could  rest  securely  and  control  the  sur- 
rounding water.^ 

But  all  such  calculations  are  loose 

2  The  only  valid  defense  of  the  Philippines  is  naval. 
This  presupposes:  1st,  a  powerful  fleet  in  the  Pa- 
cific; 2d,  the  solid  organization  of  naval  bases  in  the 
triangle  Panama,  San  Francisco,  Honolulu;  3d,  the 
fortification  of  Guam,  whence  our  fleet  could  control 
the  Japanese  lines  to  the  south.  But  these  stages  are 
successive,  and  we  are  far  from  being  able  to  use 
Guam;  while  any  attempt  to  fortify  it  would  tend 
more  than  any  other  single  act  we  could  do  to  cause 
Japan  to  declare  war.    She  would  be  perfectly  right. 

179 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

and  Utopian.  The  price  is  muck  too 
high.  The  game  is  not  worth  the 
candle.  In  practice  we  should  inevit- 
ably cut  below  the  minimum  of  safety. 
And  even  if  we  did  not,  even  if  we 
placed  in  the  Philippines  twice  the  force 
just  stated,  we  should  only  be  running 
double  the  risk,  for  in  reality  no  naval 
and  military  force  we  can  place  in  the 
islands  can  constitute  a  guarantee  of 
local  superiority. 

What  can  be  done  then?  Unfortu- 
nately we  cannot  cut  the  loss.  We 
have  undertaken  certain  obligations; 
we  are  bound  in  honor  to  make  an  at- 
tempt to  carry  them  out.  If  we  can 
establish  the  Philippines  as  an  inde- 
pendent state,  so  much  the  better.  If 
we  can  get  an  international  guarantee 
of  neutrality,  for  what  it  is  worth,  that 
might  be  helpful.  Meanwhile  we  are 
180 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

bound  to  stay.  But  let  us  stay  with  a 
clear  view  of  the  danger  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  realizing  that  the  Philippines 
are  a  source  of  weakness  and  not  of 
strength.  With  such  a  view  we  should 
keep  our  naval  and  military  forces  in 
the  islands  down  to  the  lowest  level  com- 
patible with  day  to  day  requirements. 
And  whatever  may  happen  in  the  fu- 
ture we  must  never  permit  our  line  of 
battle  ships  to  be  sent  to  so  fatal  a  spot. 
Turning  from  the  Philippines  there 
are  several  other  points  at  which  Japan 
might  strike,  California,  Alaska,  Hono- 
lulu; and  yet  others  which,  though  of 
interest,  will  not  affect  the  main  argu- 
ment. Dealing  first  with  California, 
there  does  not  seem  to  be  sufficient 
ground  for  an  alarmist  view;  and  some 
of  the  same  arguments  apply  in  this 
case  as  in  that  of  Germany.  It  is  not 
181 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

reasonable  to  suppose  that  Japan  is  in- 
capable of  perceiving  that  an  attack  on 
California  must  be  a  losing  game  in  the 
long  run.  Our  bulk  and  economic  re- 
sources are  the  undeniable  guarantees  of 
our  eventual  success.  A  reasonable 
policy  should  reject  firmly  the  notion 
that  we  must  provide  for  the  defense 
of  California  from  Japanese  conquest, 
which  means  the  creation  of  an  army  of 
at  least  half  a  million  of  men  on  a  peace 
footing.  All  we  need  do  is  to  remove 
the  temptation  we  now  offer  Japan  by 
being  entirely  undefended;  and  that 
would  in  all  probability  be  accomplished 
if  we  were  able  immediately  to  concen- 
trate three  army  corps,  say  130,000  men, 
on  the  Pacific  coast.  That  should  be, 
however,  merely  the  advance  force  of  a 
greater  national  army;  otherwise  even 
that  number  of  troops  might  not  suffice. 
182 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

Turning  next  to  Alaska  the  problem 
changes  shape.  The  possibility  of  a 
Japanese  attempt  increases  for  a  num- 
ber of  reasons,  among  others  the  ad- 
vantage of  seizing  possession  of  mineral 
deposits  which  Japan  lacks.  On  the 
other  hand  the  contiguity  of  Alaska 
to  Canada  must  act  as  a  powerful  de- 
terrent so  long  as  the  present  alliance 
between  Great  Britain  and  Japan  is 
maintained.  The  control  of  Alaska's 
long  seaboard  depends  primarily  on  the 
command  of  the  sea.  But  command  of 
the  sea  is  a  precarious  thing,  apt  to  be 
discontinuous,  particularly  for  a  coun- 
try in  our  peculiar  relation  to  two 
oceans.  On  the  other  hand  the  gar- 
risoning of  Alaska  so  as  to  defend  it  in- 
tegrally is  unthinkable.  The  solution 
appears  to  be  the  establishment  of  one 
strong  fortified  area  on  the  coast,  inex- 
183 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

tensive,  so  as  not  to  demand  a  large  gar- 
rison. This  central  position  should  be 
properly  related  to  one  or  two  minor 
ones  suitable  for  the  protection  of  the 
main  trade  routes.  Then,  with  a  few 
thousand  troops  in  garrison,  we  could 
always  hold  the  key  to  Alaska  for  a  few 
months  under  adverse  conditions,  trust- 
ing to  eventual  reUef  from  over  sea. 

So  far  it  has  been  possible  to  leave 
the  navy  almost  out  of  consideration. 
But  when  we  come  to  Honolulu  we  can 
do  so  no  longer.  And  with  Honolulu 
we  reach  the  real  bone  of  contention, 
the  most  serious  military  problem  in  our 
relations  with  Japan.  For  Honolulu 
in  the  hands  of  a  hostile  power  is  a  di- 
rect threat  to  California  and  the  Canal. 
To  protect  it,  however,  is  a  mixed  naval 
and  miUtary  proposition.  The  navy 
should  be  strong  enough,  that  is  to  say 
184 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

our  dreadnoughts  should  be  sufficiently 
well  supported  in  dockyard,  arsenal, 
cruiser,  flotilla,  and  local  defense  equip- 
ment, which  at  present  is  very  far  from 
being  the  case,  to  protect  the  Hawaiian 
islands.  In  addition  there  should  be 
an  adequate  garrison  for  the  defenses 
of  Honolulu,  which,  it  is  generally  un- 
derstood, is  a  matter  of  20,000  men. 
To  place  5,000,  or  10,000,  or  even  15,- 
000  men  in  fortifications  built  to  re- 
quire 20,000  men,  is  folly  when  our 
navy  cannot  control  the  sea,  and  would 
not  be  very  wise  even  if  it  could.  Bet- 
ter keep  troops  at  home  than  deliber- 
ately hand  them  over  to  the  enemy. 
But  this  particular  form  of  crime  is  as 
old  as  history  and  has  all  the  respect- 
ajbility  that  comes  from  ancient  and 
numerous  precedents! 

To  sum  up  our  survey  thus  far  we 
185 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

may  say,  that  Germany  may  be  dis- 
missed as  setting  a  standard  for  our 
armaments,  but  that  Japan  necessitates 
our  being  able  to  place  in  the  field  im- 
mediately on  notice  being  given: 

In  California,  3  army  corps. .  .130,800 
In  Honolulu  and  Alaska  say. .   20,000 
To  which  add  garrisons  of  Pan- 
ama and  the  Philippines  say  23,600 


174,400 


And  this  is  an  estimate  that  makes  no 
provision  for  either  maintaining  those 
numbers  or  expanding  them;  nor  does 
it  make  allowance  for  the  army's  other 
duties. 

When  we  face  south,  beyond  the  Rio 

Grande,     the     problem     once     more 

changes  character.     The  events  of  the 

last  two  years,  and  the  whole  current  of 

186 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

our  recent  history,  point  to  two  grave 
possibilities:  one  is  that  we  may  have 
to  make  an  expedition  to  the  city  of 
Mexico,  the  other  is  that  we  may  even- 
tually have  to  pohce  the  whole  of  that 
distracted  country.  These  are  un- 
doubted possibilities,  and  the  sole  ques- 
tion here  is  to  reply,  by  the  hght  of  mili- 
tary history,  to  the  question:  What 
force  should  we  require  to  deal  with 
those  problems? 

In  the  case  of  Mexico  we  cannot,  as 
in  the  case  of  Japan,  base  our  calcula- 
tion on  anything  that  approaches  a  cer- 
tain knowledge  of  the  forces  we  should 
have  to  face.  Precise  elements  are  de- 
ficient; but  we  have  analogies,  prece- 
dents, probabilities;  and  on  these  we 
must  build,  not  with  certainty,  but  to 
the  best  of  our  judgment. 

We  know,  for  instance,  that  one  of 
187 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

the  main  difficulties  of  Lord  Roberts  in 
South  Africa,  and  one  that  consumed 
numbers,  was  the  keeping  of  about  1800 
miles  of  rail  protected  from  guerrillas. 
We  also  know  that  there  is  something 
hke  25,000  miles  of  rail  in  Mexico. 
If  we  were  to  multiply  up  on  that  basis 
we  should  conclude  that  we  would  re- 
quire between  three  and  four  millions 
of  troops  to  control  Mexico.  Fortu- 
nately, however,  this  is  not  just  a  sta- 
tistical question.  For  we  also  know 
that  where  the  Boer  had  consistently 
high  morale,  the  Mexican  has  unstable 
morale.  It  is  clear  from  the  recent 
fighting  that  under  a  good  leader  the 
Mexican  may  show  up  very  well.  We 
also  laiow  from  Winfield  Scott's  expe- 
rience and  from  many  other  facts,  that 
Mexican  morale  may  be  broken,  and 
once  broken  is  not  easily  recovered. 
188 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

We  know  about  the  topography  of  a 
country  in  which  campaigning  is  diffi- 
cult. Our  General  Staff  probably 
knows  the  real  facts  as  to  how  many 
men  the  periodically  budding  candi- 
dates for  the  Presidential  throne  of 
Mexico  have  actually  had  in  the  field; 
but  for  the  layman  to  estimate  them 
from  newspaper  exaggerations  is  virtu- 
ally impossible.  Out  of  such  elements 
as  these,  somehow  or  other,  an  opinion 
must  be  formulated  for  what  it  is  worth. 
Estimating  the  troops  necessary  for 
a  march  from  Vera  Cruz  to  Mexico 
City,  together  with  the  occupation  of 
the  Tampico  district,  one  might  say,  in 
the  first  place,  that  the  cheap  and  ef- 
fective way  to  do  the  business  is  de- 
cisively, that  is  in  overwhelming  force. 
When  one  considers  the  topography, 
the  nature  of  the  railroads  between 
189 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

Vera  Cruz  and  the  capital  (424  and  474 
kilometers),  one  inclines  to  the  belief 
that  from  50,000  to  60,000  regulars 
would  be  necessary  for  the  advance 
and  the  occupation  of  necessary  points. 
According  to  circumstances  a  greater  or 
less  number  of  line  of  communication 
troops,  would  have  to  be  employed  on 
the  railroad  from  Vera  Cruz  to  Mexico 
City;  possibly  a  couple  of  militia  divi- 
sions would  suffice.  On  some  such 
basis  as  that  we  should  be  reasonably 
certain  of  making  quick  work  of  an  ad- 
vance to  Mexico  City,  without  great 
waste  of  time,  money,  or  lives.  It  is 
quite  possible,  however,  that  the  thing 
could  be  done  with  less  force.  It  is 
even  conceivable,  with  Mexican  morale 
what  it  is,  that  a  dashing  general  and 
15,000  men  might  do  the  whole  business. 
But  we  are  too  powerful  a  nation  to 
190 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

trifle  with  our  responsibilities;  a  sober 
and  safe  estimate  is  wisdom  in  the  long 
run. 

An  expedition  to  Mexico  City  might, 
however,  prove  insufficient;  it  might  be- 
come necessary  to  settle  down  to  a 
pacification  of  the  whole  country. 
This  job  would  probably,  and  properly, 
be  turned  over  to  a  Mexican  mounted 
police  as  rapidly  as  such  a  force  could 
be  constituted;  but  that  would  take 
time.  The  problem  would  doubtless 
be  less  difficult  in  some  parts  of  the 
country  than  in  others.  In  any  case 
we  should  be  able  to  train  militia  and 
volunteer  forces  for  a  few  months  be- 
fore settling  them  down  to  the  work  of 
keeping  the  peace  in  the  districts  we  had 
succeeded  in  clearing  up.  So  that  the 
problem  is  one  not  merely  of  the  num- 
ber of  troops,  but  of  the  number  of 
191 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

troops  over  three,  six,  nine  months,  and 
for  either  first  line  or  second  line  duties. 

No  data  could  possibly;  avail  to  for- 
mulate a  precise  scheme  to  fit  this  prob- 
lem. But  it  seems  reasonable  to  say- 
that  we  should  require  not  less  than 
three  army  corps  of  regulars  in  the  field 
at  the  outset,  with  the  possibility  of  a 
considerable  increase  within  three 
months.  Then  we  should  require  at  the 
very  least  three  army  corps  of  volun- 
teers or  militia,  available  in  three 
months,  with  as  many  more  available  in 
six  months.  In  all  130,000  regulars, 
rising  to  double ;  and  the  same  force  of 
volunteers  but  with  a  three  months' 
time  allowance  beyond  the  regulars. 

Summing  up  once  more,  what  do  we 
find  as  a  result.     We  require : 

For  the  garrisons  of  our  pos- 
sessions,    Alaska,     Panama, 
192 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

Honolulu,    Porto    Rico,   the 
Philippines,    say    one    army 

corps   43,600 

For  national  emergencies,  im- 
mediately available,  3  army 
corps 130,800 


174,400 

This  force  to  be  doubled  in  six 
months. 

In  three  months  from  a  declara- 
tion we  require  three  army 
corps  of  volunteers  which 
should  be  in  existence  as  mili- 
tia during  peace  time.  Mili- 
tia     130,800 


Peace  total,  regular  and  militia.305,200 

This  force  to  be  doubled  in  six 
months. 

193 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

Doubling  these  forces  would 
make  available  a  war  total,  in 
'>six  months,  of 610,400 

To  this  figure  must  be  added  the 
Coast  Defense  troops.  Coast  defense 
brings  us  to  an  interesting  point 
though  one  of  minor  importance.  The 
Coast  Defense  theory,  under  which  vast 
sums  of  public  money  have  been  and 
are  being  spent,  is  largely  absurd.  It 
is  the  one  part  of  our  military  prepara- 
tions that  is  being  over  instead  of  un- 
derdone; and  it  is  quite  time  that  the 
matter  were  investigated  out  of  its 
present  dangerous  groove. 

In  the  first  place  "Coast"  defense 
means  nothing  at  all.  We  can't  defend 
our  coast ;  nor  have  we  got  to  defend  it, 
at  all  events,  not  in  the  terms  of  our 
Coast  Defense  theory.  We  have  either 
to  prevent  a  raid  against  one  of  our 
194 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

ports,  in  which  case  we  are  dealing  witH 
port  or  harbor  defense  at  most ;  or  else 
we  have  to  meet  the  attack  of  an  expe- 
ditionary force,  the  landing  of  which 
will  not  take  place,  for  obvious 
enough  reasons,  at  any  of  our  ports, 
but  in  between  ports,  along  some  shel- 
tered strip  of  coast.  Now  to  protect 
our  coasts  against  such  an  eventuality 
and  at  all  possible  points  by  shore  de- 
fenses, is  ridiculous;  the  enterprise  is 
gigantic.  Half  the  effort  entailed, 
directed  into  other  channels,  would 
leave  us  the  greatest  military  power  in 
the  world. 

On  the  other  hand  the  mere  protec- 
tion of  our  harbors  against  a  raiding 
cruiser  or  two  should  not  be  a  very 
complicated  or  difficult  matter.  Even 
New  York,  our  greatest  port,  could 
probably  be  defended  with  complete 
195 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

success  against  a  raid  without  a  single 
one  of  the  formidable  guns  placed  in 
the  shore  batteries.  With  such  a  nar- 
row and  difficult  channel  a  half  dozen 
destroyers  and  a  couple  of  mine  fields 
with  a  few  shore  guns  would  make  the 
entrance  perfectly  secure. 

In  any  case  this  question  is  one  for 
experts;  and  for  a  mixed  board  of  ex- 
perts, naval  and  military.  It  is  worse 
than  ridiculous  to  continue  dealing  with 
it  on  a  basis  of  reassuring  formulas 
about  defending  our  "Coast/'  formulas 
that  cloak  false  military  principles  and 
the  squandering  of  public  money.  The 
danger  of  an  attack  by  a  raiding  cruiser 
on  a  port  can  be  solved  simply  and 
economically  by  a  competent  board  of 
experts.  The  landing  of  an  expedi- 
tionary force  can  be  dealt  with  in  only 
one  way,  which  is  by  an  immediate  con- 
196 


OUR  DEFENSE  POLICY 

centration  of  equal  or  superior  num- 
bers of  troops.  To  protect  every  land- 
ing place  on  our  coast  lines  is  a  fantastic 
proposal. 

On  the  whole  we  may  safely  cut  down 
our  coast  defense  force  by  a  half  or 
more.  Let  us  call  it  10,000  men,  and 
add  it  to  the  previous  total.  Adding 
this  item  we  find  that  our  national 
needs  for  defense  amount  in  round 
numbers  to  184,400  regulars  and  130,- 
800  effective  militia,  on  a  peace  footing. 
We  further  note  that  each  force  should 
be  capable  of  being  doubled  as  rapidly 
as  possible  in  a  national  emergency. 

This  brings  us  to  the  question  of  or- 
ganization, which  in  the  present  state  of 
our  army,  is  the  most  urgent  question 
before  the  country.  We  have  peace; 
the  world  may  rest  quiet  for  a  few 
years;  that  is  an  opportunity  not  to  be 
197 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

neglected  for  putting  through  the  re- 
modeling of  our  army.  It  is  an  im- 
perative national  necessity;  it  is  far 
more  important,  at  bottom,  than  any 
mere  increase  of  numbers. 


198 


CHAPTER  IX 

ORGANIZATION 

SINCE  the  period  when  the  de  Gri- 
beauval-Bonaparte  theories  got 
into  play,  which  is  quite  a  while  ago, 
the  division  has  been  the  field  unit  of 
armies,  for  it  combines  the  three  arms 
and  is  tactically  self  sufficient.  Our 
progressive  country  has  recently  caught 
up  with  this  more  than  century  old  idea, 
thanks  to  the  energy  of  our  late  Chief- 
of- Staff,  General  Wood.  We  have  a 
divisional  organization;  the  trouble  is 
we  have  not  got  the  divisions  to  put  into 
the  organization.  For  the  present  pur- 
pose it  will  be  safe  to  ignore  it,  there- 
fore, and  to  proceed  on  the  assumpticMi, 
199 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

not  so  far  removed  from  the  fact,  that 
the  U.  S.  army  has  not  got  a  divisional 
organization  at  all,  and  that  we  are 
starting  with  clear  foundations: 
A  division  should  consist  of: 

Infantry :  two  brigades ; 

each  brigade  of  six  battalions : 

each  battalion  of  800  men  .  .  9,600 

Cavalry:  one  battalion   800 

Artillery:  ten  batteries  ^ 1,200 

Engineer  and  other  services.  .  .  800 

Total    12,400 

An  army  corps  should  consist  of  three 
divisions,  and  an  additional  cavalry 
division  (or  double  division)  of  eight 
battalions,  or  6,400  men ,  giving  the 
total  for  an  army  corps  of  43,600.     Let 

1  The  proportion  and  weight  of  batteries  must  be 
reconsidered  after  the  close  of  the  present  war.  The 
above  is  merely  a  formal  estimate  of  no  real  value. 

WO 


ORGANIZATION 

us  now  look  more  closely  at  the  adjust- 
ment in  the  principal  arms. 

Of  infantry  we  require,  on  a  peace 
footing,  12  battalions  per  division,  that 
is  for  12  divisions  144  battalions  in  all. 
But  we  require  these  immediately,  that 
is  in  time  of  peace  and  at  full  strength; 
while  we  require  to  raise  as  many  more 
men  by  expansion  in  case  of  war. 
What  is  the  best  way  to  do  it? 

The  answer  is  to  create  a  framework 
which  we  can  expand,  filling  the  ranks 
of  two  battalions  per  regiment  in  peace 
and  of  four  in  war.  This  can  be  accom- 
plished by  creating  a  regimental  organ- 
ization of  five  battalions,  or  a  total  of 
72  regiments,  an  increase  of  42  on  our 
present  establishment.  Battalions  1 
and  2  are  the  peace  footing  battalions ; 
3  is  the  territorial  depot-battalion  or 
half  battahon;  4  and  5  are  the  reserve 
201 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

war  battalions,  non-existent  in  time  of 
peace.  In  a  great  emergency  even 
more  battalions  could  be  formed  from 
the  depots.  The  working  of  this  sys- 
tem would  be  as  follows : 

The  third  battalion  is  the  regimental 
headquarters  and  depot,  fixed  conven- 
iently for  recruiting  in  some  large  cen- 
ter of  population;  for  it  is  essential  to 
relate  the  army  to  the  population,  and 
not  to  keep  it  in  out  of  the  way  comers 
as  though  we  were  ashamed  of  it.  At 
the  regimental  headquarters  would  be 
centralized  the  administrative  work  of 
the  whole  regiment;  the  first  training 
of  the  recruit;  ^  the  drafting  of  men  to 
the  field  battalions  according  to  re- 
quirements; the  storing  of  the  reserve 
equipment;  the  calling  in  and  making 

«This  has  drawbacks,  as  Colonel  Morrison  points 
out  in  his  admirable  little  book,  "Training  Infantry"; 
but  erery  lystem  is  a  compromise. 

2oa 


ORGANIZATION 

ready  the  reservists  if  called  up  for 
service;  the  forming  of  the  4th  and  5th 
battalions  in  case  of  expansion  in  time 
of  war.  The  depot  battalion  must  be 
strong  in  its  administrative  and  train- 
ing staff,  but  may  without  danger  be 
quite  weak  in  nmnbers,  as  its  function 
is  to  organize,  equip,  and  feed  the 
other  battalions  of  the  regiment  but 
never  itself  to  take  the  field.  It  there- 
fore gives  elasticity  to  the  regiment  as 
a  whole,  taking  up  the  slackness  when 
recruiting  is  bad,  while  maintaining  the 
1st  and  2nd  battalions  to  a  proper  level, 
and  in  war  time  the  4th  and  5th. 

But  how,  it  will  be  asked,  are  these 
fourth  and  fifth  battalions  going  to 
come  into  existence?  Where  are  the 
men  and  where  are  the  officers  coming 
from?  The  answer  as  to  the  men  is 
that  there  will  normally  always  be  a 
203 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

percentage  of  recruits  working  their 
way  in;  that  this  percentage  of  recruits 
will  necessarily  increase  in  war  time, 
though  it  is  not  desirable  that  this  in- 
crease be  too  great  or  too  rapid.  To 
the  recruits  must  be  added  reservists. 

For  some  years  the  War  Department 
and  the  General  Staff  have  been  pretty 
well  agreed  that  reservists  are  needed. 
The  question  is,  how  to  get  them?  The 
matter  is  largely  one  of  bargaining. 
How  long  do  you  need  to  hold  the  sol- 
dier to  the  colors?  Some  answer  as 
little  as  one  year;  General  Wother- 
spoon,  in  his  report  as  Chief  of  Staff, 
demands  three.  How  much  pay  will 
induce  the  soldier  to  join  for  so  long? 
How  much  will  induce  him  to  remain 
liable  to  rejoin,  in  an  emergency,  and 
over  what  period  of  years  will  he  agree 
to  be  liable?  A  working  compromise 
204 


ORGANIZATION 

of  some  sort  has  got  to  be  established. 
Experience  has  proved  well  enough 
that,  other  things  being  equal,  a  soldier 
trained  four  years  is  measurably  supe- 
rior to  a  soldier  trained  only  three 
years.  The  slightly  trained  unit,  like 
the  English  territorial  regiment  or  the 
slightly  inferior  American  militia,  can- 
not be  used  under  three  to  six  months, 
save  possibly  as  line  of  communications 
troops  in  an  emergency,  though  that  is 
for  many  reasons  imadvisable.  This 
again  is  fundamentally  influenced  by  the 
higher  or  lower  standard  of  training  set 
for  the  various  grades  of  officers.  Some- 
where, a  working  compromise  between 
the  quality  and  quantity  of  the  soldier 
and  the  financial  burden  must  be  found. 
Assuming  for  the  sake  of  the  argu- 
ment the  proposal  of  General  Wother- 
spoon  as  a  basis  for  bargaining  with  the 
W5 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

enlisted  man,  we  should  have  the  regu- 
lars three  years  with  the  colors,  and 
then  passed  along  into  a  reserve  from 
which  they  could  be  summoned  for  a 
term  of  years  to  rejoin  in  case  of  emer- 
gency. This  reserve  would  come  in  to 
the  regimental  depots  and,  added  to  a 
proportion  of  recruits,  furnish  men 
enough  for  the  4th  and  5th  battal- 
ions. Then  comes  the  question  of  the 
officers. 

One  of  the  most  emphatic  lessons  of 
all  mihtary  history  is  that  a  regiment  is 
about  as  good  as  its  officers,  a  fact  which 
our  public  has  never  realized.  Our 
statesmen,  indeed,  have  always  been  in- 
clined to  act  on  the  opposite  assumption, 
and  produced  ghastly  butcheries  in  con- 
sequence. The  vital  point  in  establish- 
ing the  quaUty  of  an  army  is  to  get 
enough  good  officers  to  train  the  men, 
^06 


ORGANIZATION 

and  to  lead  battalions  and  companies. 
How  are  they  to  be  obtained  for  our  4th 
and  5th  battalions  ?  The  best  way  is  to 
have  with  the  first  three  battalions,  on 
peace  footing,  more  officers  than  are  ac- 
tually needed,  and  to  keep  a  consider- 
able number  of  officers  learning  the 
higher  branches  of  their  profession  at 
the  Fort  Leavenworth  school  and  at  the 
Army  War  College,  who  would  natu- 
rally join  the  troops  again  if  a  state  of 
war  occurred.  If,  for  example,  the  1st 
and  2nd  battalions  had  each  of  them 
eight  companies  (or  four  double  com- 
panies) and  on  the  calling  up  of  reserv- 
ists cut  down  their  companies  to  four 
only ;  then  four  captains  from  each  bat- 
tahon  could  be  passed  back  to  the  depot 
to  take  over  the  reservist  companies  as 
they  were  completed  for  the  4th  and  5th 
battalions.  If  in  peace  time  not  less 
207 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

than  one  captain  and  two  lieutenants 
were  detached  from  each  battalion  to 
the  Fort  Leavenworth  schools,  and  if 
each  colonel  saw  that  every  captain  fre- 
quently handled  a  double  company  or 
even  a  half  battaUon,  the  disadvantage 
of  doubling  a  captain's  command  for 
war  service  would  probably  not  prove 
very  serious. 

Turning  to  the  cavalry,  the  require- 
ment is  to  provide  twelve  battalions  for 
divisional  service,  about  as  many  more 
for  scattered  service,  and  four  cavalry 
divisions  of  eight  battahons  each,  in  all 
54  battalions.  Before  dealing  with 
their  organization,  however,  it  is  better 
to  recall  with  great  emphasis  the  special 
effectiveness  of  Sheridan's  corps  in  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac.  The  conditions 
of  campaigning  in  most  parts  of  the 
American  Continent  are  highly  favor- 


ORGANIZATION 

able  to  this  sort  of  command.  And  it 
is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  one  army 
corps  with  a  division  of  cavalry,  trained 
in  peace  time  to  mancetcver  as  a  unit, 
would  in  many  cases  be  more  effective 
than  two  army  corps  with  merely  a  few 
cavalry  battalions  brought  together  for 
the  first  time. 

Mounted  riflemen  are  cheap  and 
quick  to  train ;  and  for  that  reason  well 
adapted  as  a  model  for  the  divisional 
cavalry  of  militia  divisions.  For  the 
regular  cavalry  the  dragoon,  who  is  a 
mounted  rifleman  trained  to  the  use  of 
the  sword,  will  answer  our  purpose 
best.  For  the  militia  it  is  not  practical 
to  attempt  to  create  independent  cav- 
alry divisions,  nor  in  fact  cavalry  at 
all;  and  we  must  confine  ourselves  to 
enough  mounted  riflemen  to  complete 
militia  divisional  organizations. 
209 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

For  the  regulars  we  require,  there- 
fore, 27  regiments,  twelve  more  than  at 
present.  Each  of  these  would  be  or- 
ganized like  the  infantry  with  a  depot 
battalion  or  squadron,  two  field  battal- 
ions, and  a  framework  of  officers  and 
reservists  sufiScient  to  give  at  least  one 
more  battalion  for  war  purposes.  Each 
field  battalion  should  have  a  battery  of 
two  mountain  guns,  two  mountain 
howitzers,  and  machine  guns;  while 
each  cavalry  division  should  have  at- 
tached to  it  not  less  than  four  batteries 
of  field  guns.  Although  the  pro- 
vision made  for  cavalry  is  not  on  quite 
the  same  level  as  that  for  the  infan- 
try, it  is  probable  that  the  reserve 
and  depot  system,  if  efficiently  handled, 
might  turn  out  rather  more  troops  than 
indicated  above,  while  volunteering  and 
the  raising  of  rough  rider  organizations 
^10 


ORGANIZATION 

would  be  of  material  service  in  furnish- 
ing a  sufficient  cavalry  arm. 

Artillery  is  the  great  auxiliary  arm. 
To  render  proper  service  its  numbers 
and  material  must  be  ascertained  by  the 
light  of  experience  in  proportion  and 
relation  to  the  other  arms.  This  is  a 
difficult  problem  for  the  best  technical 
experts.  It  is  not  proposed  to  say  any- 
thing further  here  than  that  the  best 
proportions  should  be  fixed,  the  best 
material  should  be  obtained,  and  a 
proper  reserve  both  of  material  and  of 
ammunition  should  be  maintained. 
The  engineering  and  other  minor  serv- 
ices of  the  army  will  for  similar  reasons 
be  left  out  of  the  argument. 

Coming  back  to  the  salient  facts,  we 

have  one  more  which  for  importance 

must  rank  on  the  same  level  as  the  depot 

and  reserve  organizations  of  the  army, 

211 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

and  that  is  training.  The  highest 
trained  army  is  the  best.  That  train- 
ing is  of  troops,  of  company  officers,  of 
field  officers  and  of  the  higher  com- 
mand. And  the  higher  branches  of 
the  art  of  war  constitute  one  of  the  most 
intensely  difficult  branches  of  study  in 
the  whole  field  of  human  knowledge. 
Lack  of  training  and  ignorance  of  the 
higher  leading  of  troops  has  cost  more 
than  one  great  nation  in  modern  times 
some  of  the  most  bitter  pages  of  its  his- 
tory. 

Our  new  model  army  must  not  only 
be  territorially  distributed,  but  it  must 
have  proper  instruction;  and  for  that 
the  minimum  requirements  are  these: 
West  Point  should  be  enlarged  and 
another  military  college  should  be 
founded.  Some  point  in  the  West 
would  seem  indicated,  and  Colorado  has 
2m 


ORGANIZATION 

much  to  recommend  it  for  this  purpose. 
Between  the  ages  of  26  and  32  a  large 
proportion  of  junior  officers  should 
be  sent  to  the  Army  Service  Schools  for 
either  a  short  or  a  long  course  (one  or 
two  years)  of  advanced  study.  A  pro- 
portion of  officers  obtaining  high  grades 
in  this  course  should  be  sent,  after  re- 
turning to  regimental  duty  for  at  least 
two  years,  to  the  Army  War  College  at 
Washington,  for  a  further  period  of  ad- 
vanced study.  The  staff  of  these  two 
institutions  should  be  strengthened  in 
every  way  possible,  and  made  semi-per- 
manent. Our  army  administration 
must  place  its  emphasis  on  high  train- 
ing instead  of  sacrificing  the  thinking 
and  organizing  processes  to  blind  rou- 
tine as  it  does  at  present. 

We  further  require  camps  of  instruc- 
tion,  or  perhaps  better  still   summer 
213 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

manoeuvers.  Suitable  ground  should 
He  acquired  for  the  continuous  training 
of  officers  and  men  in  the  handling  of 
brigades  and  divisions  both  of  infantry 
and  of  cavalry.  It  might  even  be  ad- 
visable to  have  a  second  camp,  on  the 
Pacific  Coast,  for  the  assembling  for 
periodic  training  of  another  division  of 
infantry.  In  no  other  way  can  real 
efficiency  be  attained.  Let  those  who 
doubt  this  study  the  almost  incredible 
details  of  Bazaine's  attempts  to  move 
his  columns  through  the  city  of  Metz,  or 
of  McClellan's  farcical  efforts  to  get  his 
army  up  the  Peninsula.  A  few  well 
schooled  Prussian  staff  captains  could 
have  handled  the  whole  business  with- 
out the  least  trouble. 

In  the  above  sketch  of  a  new  model 
army  a  good  many  points  have  been 
left  untouched.     But  it  must  be  clear  to 
214 


ORGANIZATION 

the  reader  that  this  is  nothing  more  than 
an  effort  to  indicate  the  broad  lines  of 
a  specific  policy.  Some  details  are 
clearly  open  to  adjustment.  Others 
may  be  assumed  from  the  premises,  for 
instance,  that  the  organization  of  the 
militia  and  the  training  of  its  officers 
should  be  on  lines  corresponding  as 
nearly  as  possible  to  those  for  the 
Regulars.  To  take  another  matter:  if 
we  form  so  many  batteries  of  artil- 
lery, available  within  such  a  period,  we 
must  obviously  be  provided  with  the 
ammunition  that  shall  make  those  bat- 
teries effective.  In  one  way  it  seem3 
needless  to  make  the  remark.  Yet 
such  is  our  tradition  in  such  matters  that 
it  has  its  importance. 

I  realize  only  too  well  the  fate  of  a 
book  like  this  in  many  quarters,     ft 
216 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

would  not  be  difficult  to  write  a  biting 
criticism  of  it,  nor  to  guess  which  editor 
might  be  most  eager  to  print  it.  No 
great  effort  is  required  to  imagine  the 
eloquent  indignation  with  which  the 
pacifist  orator  will  denounce  it.  The 
politician,  who  is  arraigned  in  it,  will 
naturally  condemn  it;  or  perhaps  view 
it  as  an  embarrassment;  or,  at  best,  a 
means  for  embarrassing  his  opponents. 
Unfortunately  many  of  the  public- 
minded,  ignorant  of  history,  war,  and 
international  politics,  will  not  derange 
the  systems  of  their  minds  by  even  at- 
tempting to  understand  it.  Hostility 
and  inertia  loom  large  on  the  horizon. 
Yet  many  who  read  it  will,  I  know, 
realize  that  facts  carefully  observed 
have  been  placed  before  them,  from 
which  only  moderate  and  reasonable 
deductions  have  been  drawn ;  and  for  no 
216 


ORGANIZATION 

purpose  save  to  serve  the  country.  Let 
us  hope  that  all  who  understand  will 
support  those  few  gentlemen  who  in 
Congress  and  elsewhere  are  striving  to 
improve  our  national  defenses. 

To  say  that  war  is  stupid  and  wicked 
may  be  true ;  most  people  nowadays  are 
agreed  on  this  point.  But  it  does  not 
dispose  of  the  question.  It  is  only  in 
the  kindergarten  text  that  it  takes  two 
to  make  a  quarrel,  as  every  page  of  his- 
tory ancient  and  modern  demonstrates ; 
and  we  have  some  very  recent  cases.  If 
war  is  stupid  and  wicked,  to  encourage 
others  to  make  war  by  remaining  de- 
fenseless is  stupid,  wicked  and  crim- 
inal. And  to  avoid  that  crime  it  is  not 
necessary  to  threaten,  it  is  not  nec- 
essary to  arm  to  the  teeth.  We  have 
merely  to  raise  our  army  to  a  stand- 
ard that  will  place  it  about  on  a 
«17 


ARMS  AND  THE  RACE 

level  with  those  of  the  second  or  third 
rate  European  powers,  say  somewhere 
between  those  of  Holland  and  of  Rou- 
mania.  To  imagine  that  this  would  be 
a  departure  from  our  old-time  policy, 
that  it  would  alarm  Europe,  lose  us  our 
moral  power,  and  so  forth,  is  cheap  clap- 
trap for  very  ignorant  and  foolish  audi- 
ences. It  would,  of  course,  have  pre- 
cisely the  opposite  effect.  It  would 
show  European  statesmen  that,  unlike 
Belgium,  we  can  face  the  issues  of  peace 
and  war,  and  that  if  a  grave  problem, 
like  that  of  Mexico,  should  be  thrust 
upon  us,  we  are  capable  of  solving  it, 
which  now  appears  quite  doubtful. 

There  is  at  present  an  outcry  that  we 
should  investigate  the  Army.  Is  it 
worth  while,  poor  thing?  It  does  its 
best;  it  generally  has  done  what  was 
possible  under  hopeless  conditions.  Its 
^18 


ORGANIZATION 

feebleness  is  known  to  all  and  may  be 
estimated  at  sight.  What  topsy-turvi- 
dom  to  investigate  the  innocent  sufferer 
and  to  leave  uninvestigated  the  source 
of  all  the  evil,  the  body  with  w^hich  Ues 
the  responsibility  for  the  army's  condi- 
tion, that  is  Congress!  There  is  the 
point  at  which  investigation  is  neces- 
sary, and  in  fact  urgent. 


THE  END 


«1» 


J) 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  Is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below, 
or  on  the  date  to  which  renewed.  Renewals  only: 

Teh  No.  642-3405 
Renewals  may  be  made  4  days  ^rior  to  date  due. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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